RoseColoredGlasses

Fashion | Photography | Poetry | Islamic Literature and Calligraphy | African Literature | Politics | Nigeria

[noorshirazie]

“I loved you in your majesty, and I will love you harder in the midst of your ruins.”

— Noor Shirazie

[bushakiye]

[partytilfajr]

Relevant Commands in Islam for Young People:

Stop talking trash about other people:

“O you who have attained to faith! Avoid most guesswork [about one another] - for, behold, some of [such] guesswork is [in itself] a sin; and do not spy upon one another, and neither allow yourselves to speak ill of one another behind your backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? Nay, you would loathe it! And be conscious of God. Verily, God is an acceptor of repentance, a dispenser of grace!” - The Holy Qur'an [49:12]

Stop saying you’ll do something, but not do it:

“Most loathsome is it in the sight of God that you say what you do not do!” - The Holy Qur'an [61:3]

Stop talking when you’re angry:

“When one of you is angry, he should be silent.” - The Prophet [Al-Adab Al-Mufrad]

Stop thinking that God won’t accept your repentence:

“Even if your sins reached up to the clouds in the sky, I would forgive you.”- Hadith Qudsi [Sunan al-Tirmdhi]

Stop pretending that God won’t forgive you from your sins so you don’t start fresh:

“Why would God cause you to suffer [for your past sins] if you are grateful and attain to belief - seeing that God is always responsive to gratitude, all-knowing?” - The Holy Qur’an [4:147]

Stop telling the other gender to lower their gaze, lower it yourself, that includes online:

“Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity: this will be most conducive to their purity - [and,] verily, God is aware of all that they do… And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity.” - The Holy Qur'an [24:30]

Stop being mean to those who have wronged you:

“Excellence is being kind to those who are evil to you.” - Prophet Eisa (Jesus) [Tafsir ibn Kathir]

Stop forgetting to pray to God when times are tough, here, Dua of Desperation: رَبِّ إِنِّي لِمَا أَنْزَلْتَ إِلَيَّ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَقِيرٌ Rabbi inni limaa anzalta ilayya min khayrin faqeer [28:24]

Stop neglecting to put what you learn into practice:

“Who are the learned? Those who practice what they know.” - The Prophet [Bukhari]

Stop procrastinating and work hard:

“The believer dies with sweat on his brow.” - The Prophet [Tirmidhi]

Stop envying other people:

“Beware of envy, for envy consumes good works as fire consumes wood.” - The Prophet [Abu Dawud]

Stop chasing things that you know aren’t good for you:

“…it may well be that you hate a thing the while it is good for you, and it may well be that you love a thing the while it is bad for you: and God knows, whereas you do not know.” - The Holy Qur’an [2:216]

Stop forgetting that God is testing you with hardships:

“Do people think that they will be left alone because they say: ‘We believe,’ and will not be tested?” - The Holy Qur'an [29:2]

“And most certainly shall We try you by means of danger, and hunger, and loss of worldly goods, of lives and of [labour’s] fruits. But give glad tidings unto those who are patient in adversity -” - The Holy Qur'an [2:155]

Stop forgetting that God knows you can get through these hardships:

“God does not burden any human being with more than he is well able to bear” - The Holy Qur'an [2:286]

“God does not burden any human being with more than He has given him - [and it may well be that] God will grant, after hardship, ease.” - The Holy Qur'an [65:7]

“Seek closeness [to God] and be steadfast.. in all that afflicts the believer there is atonement, even a thorn that pricks him.” - The Prophet [Tirmidhi]

Stop taking your free time and health for granted:

“Two favors that many of the people squander are health and free time.” - The Prophet [Tirmidhi]

Stop fooling yourself into thinking that those sins you do lead to better things than what God can give:

“There is nothing that you leave out of God-consciousness [taqwa] except that God will compensate you with something better” - The Prophet [Ahmad]

Stop forgetting that God remembers those who do good:

“O son of Adam, I do not forget the person who disobeys Me, so how can I forget someone who obeys Me?” - Hadith Qudsi

Stop finding excuses to not give money in charity:

“A man said: ‘O Messenger of God, which kind of charity is best? He said: ‘Giving charity when you are in good health, and feeling stingy, hoping for a long life and fearing poverty.”’ [Nasa'i]

“[O believers,] never shall you attain to true piety unless you spend on others out of what you cherish yourselves;” - The Qur'an [3:92]

Stop waiting for God to make a change you need to make:

“Indeed, God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” - The Holy Qur'an [13:11]

Stop forgetting to pray for your parents, here, the Dua for parents:

[rabbi irhamhuma kama rabbayanee sagheera] “My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up [when I was] small” [17:24]

Stop thinking that being young doesn’t matter, of the protected people on Youm Al-Qiyamah it includes:

“a youth who grew up with the worship of God” - The Prophet [Bukhari]

Stop pretending that wealth and worldly stuff is a reward from God, they’re tests:

“and know that your worldly goods and your children are but a trial and a temptation, and that with God there is a tremendous reward” [8:28]

Just remember: “The Prophet said, ‘My Lord says…if he comes to Me walking, I go to him running.’” - [Bukhari]

[islamic-quotes]

Eternal

[btterflyarchive]

[basmh-deactivated20170831]

نحن ننضج بفعل الضرر، لا بفعل السنين. We mature with the damage, not with the years.  - Mateus William

[scenesandscreens]

The Lost Okoroshi (2019)

Director - Abba T. Makama, Cinematography - Michael Omonua

"Next time, don't run."

[caribbritchick]

Advice for people in their 20s from someone who’s just entered their 30s....

1. Don’t waste time being fearful: go for that job that you’re certain you’re not gonna get. What’s the worse that can happen? You are rejected, but you gain interview experience. Self-doubt is really a waste of time.

2. Live in the present. Yes, it is important to plan for the future, but it is easy to put off living until it is too late. Make sure that you have no regrets about what you should have done. Do one exciting thing per year.

3. Know your worth. This applies to both work and relationships; never sell yourself short. No job or romance is more important than your self respect. Also, charge for any unique skills/services that you can offer. 

4. Don’t be afraid to leave bad situations. I left a stable but draining teaching job in order to protect my mental health. Even though this was a big risk, it was the best decision I ever made. NOTHING is more important than your mental health. 

5. Most 20 somethings feel that they are underachieving. This is normal - especially in today’s financial climate. Don’t feel bad if you are still living at home and cannot afford to rent/buy. I’m 30 and still living at home, saving to buy.

6. People will disappoint you, but most of the time, it’s not about you. Everybody has their own demons and traumas that make them behave in certain ways. If somebody disrespects you, assert your boundaries and keep it moving. Also, examine if there was anything you could have done to avoid the situation. But DO NOT let it eat away at you.

7. In love, nobody owes you anything. Even if they made a promise, they are their own person…Everybody has the right to change their mind and to leave a situation which is not beneficial for them. This is hurtful and hard to accept, but it is the truth.

8. Learn to enjoy your own company. Your 20s can be a lonely time as your social sphere narrows, due to employment, finances and exhaustion. Use this time to find out more about yourself and do the things that you enjoy. There is something liberating about eating at a restaurant alone. 

9. Be kind, don’t gossip or overshare. I am still working on this one. It is really difficult to be kind and positive in a world full of annoying people. However, your attitude will influence how you are being perceived. If you are unkind, people will laugh at your jokes but they will never trust you. They will never trust you not to treat them as you treat other people. Remove yourself from toxic people, and only share negativity (sadness/anger/depression) with a therapist and one other person that you trust. If you overshare negative feelings, you may be stereotyped as being full of drama. Furthermore, people will want you to stay in a negative place because it’s entertaining and makes them feel better about their own lives. Just don’t do it.

10. You cannot win every battle. Within conflict, it is tempting to try to force others to agree with your perspective. However, most people are set in their ways, and find it difficult to change their views and behaviours. This is especially important when dealing with toxic family members. You may never get the apology and empathy that you seek, so it is important to accept that every battle cannot be won, and gain validation internally, rather than externally.

[synnabunnz]

All of this hit me especially parts of 9. Never opening myself again for someone to throw everything back in my face. I refuse.

[epic-e-deactivated20201219]

Needed to hear all of this! 👌🏾👌🏾😭

[seeker-of-peace]

11. It’s never late to restart something or do something you always wish to do

12.stop believing every damn thing you see on social media’s, because guess what? It’s Hella deceiving, no one would ever post their shitty life but just their best moments worth portraying

13. Get out and live

14. It’s okay to cry sometimes and it’s also okay to let others see your weak days or moments. We all have them

[thrdnarrative]

Postcards were invented around 1860 (at a time when European countries were starting to frantically compete with each other for the best and furthest African and Asian colonies). The relatively cheap picture cards quickly became the most popular form of communication of the previous century. Between 1907 and 1915 – also known as the Golden Age of postcards – the development of cheap color printing and photography methods led to a doubling of postcard production every six months, and billions of postcards were sent each year (with some people sending up to 50 a day!).

Although making up just a small portion of the postcard market, colony-themed postcards provided a pretty crafty way for countries to market and advertise their colonies as well as justify the practice of colonialism itself.

Propaganda packaged in a 6 by 4 inch format, these niche postcards colorfully illustrate the ideologies that were used to justify European colonialism almost a century ago.

These cards are now odd and at times shocking reminders of how Europeans viewed the world and the colonial “other” during the final decades of European colonialism– and they are riddled with ethnic and cultural stereotypes. x

Please visit the page, and read the rest. Some of those images .. wow.

[owning-my-truth-deactivated2022]

Serious question- is it like some sacred pilgrimage for white people, especially white photographers, to go to Tanzania or Kenya and take basic ass photographs of Maasai people? It’s like their trip to the zoo. Look- Maasai jumping! Look Maasai piercing! How often do you see a humanizing photograph? Never.

As an African photographer, it’s SO easy for me to tell when a photograph in ~Africa~ was taken by a non-black and non-African person. It’s always the same shit. Cameras angled down on children, literally looking DOWN on them. Children peering around corners at the camera since they have no fucking clue who this person is waltzing around their community like its a safari. The same basic exotifying shit you would see on the discovery channel of a pack of hyenas with the exhibit this time featuring either the Maasai or the Himba. Poverty pornography. It’s all horrific.

And then I compare that to the work of African photographers like Samuel Fosso, Seydou Keita, Malick Sidibe, Zanele Muholi, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Sabelo Mlangeni, James Barnor and much more. These are the people who inspire me every single day and the core of their work is grace, art and an enduring humanity. When you look at a Keita photograph from Bamako, Mali in the 50s, it’s like you’re having a conversation with that person today. I’m always arrested by his work and that of the other African photography greats.

The photographic work of white people on the continent and non-Africans more broadly, on the other hand, does nothing for me. There is no gentleness, kindness, warmth or- fundamentally- humanity in the works. They just don’t get it or really SEE us and it shows.

There’s no way that anyone can ever tell me that great art about Africa can be made by non-Africans. It just does not compute. The continent has been pillaged for centuries. In addition to robbing us of millions of people (including countless creatives) who were exploited and killed through the slave trade, the artistic labor of our ancestors were also savaged and shipped all over the West (e.g. the Benin Bronzes). You can walk into almost any “Natural History Museum” today and find the fruits of our labor featured next to other stolen antiquities between various wild animal exhibits. When I went to the Brooklyn Museum I was captivated by the incredible indigenous art on display, but also by the exploitation, brutality and colonization which spirited this art away from its home communities all the way to Brooklyn. I hear that the British Natural History Museum is an even more horrifying glorification of colonial exploitation in the form of stolen artwork- including a huge inventory from their former African colonies.

So I honestly find it offensive when non-Africans, especially white people, are running around trying to tell African stories FOR us. Robbing us of our agency like they’ve been attempting to do for centuries now. But in spite of all of this, we rise, we create and we flourish. We create works by and for us and there’s so much power in that… and us! I’m so inspired by African artists from across the diaspora and looking at the amazing work being produced day in and day out it reminds me that we shall overcome in spite of any and all bs.

:)

[viniamojica-blog]

Malick Sidibe 

1935-2016 

Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art: Sidibé, best known for his black-and-white images of Malian youth culture from the 1950s to 70s, still resonates among photographers across Africa and around the world. He achieved success in his homeland of Bamako, Mali, and in Paris. In 2007, Sidibé became the first African, and the first photographer, to be awarded the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale. His iconic work, Nuit de Noël (Happy Club), in the museum’s permanent collection, was featured in the exhibition Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue. #MalickSidibe

[mirrormirrormag]

To Be A Muslim Girl

To be a muslim girl means wearing your identity on the outside.

Our appearance stands out among the waves of people who don’t. With our hijabs and our turbans and our accents and our unibrows and our big noses.

But people still assume. They assume because they are not used to seeing women not conforming to the societal norms and the unwritten rules of america. They are not used to seeing women conduct themselves under the the flashy lights they throw at us. They are not used to seeing

Empowered women. Women  who are unabashedly themselves, and more. The women who had nothing but their history and hope for the kids they will raise in the land of the free.

An everlasting hope, even when no one else believed in us. A hope that we will carve our place in this country, built on the backs of slavery and labor. Our mothers are relentless and tireless. They continue to work as they continue to push their culture on ours. A culture and religion that was cultivated for thousands of years.

Morocco, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and the

United States of America. This is home to 3.3 million Muslims. 1% of the entire country. Yet we are here. Do not forget about us. Do not underestimate us. We are all capable of so many things, and our differences only make us stronger. Women like Ibtihaj Muhammad. Halima Aden. Amani Al-Khatahtbeh. Linda Sarsour. Shahd Batal. Leah Vernon. Blair Imani.

Say their name. Say their name and don’t ever stop. They are the trailblazers, the pioneers, the trendsetters, the change makers, the innovators, the spearheaders, the groundbreakers for the future. But how many more women are going to be called groundbreakers for work that has already been done?

Let’s make people comfortable with being uncomfortable with the women we see in the news. Let’s get used to seeing women in hijabs becoming president. Imagine a world where you don’t get any odd stares on the street. Where you don’t get called out for being yourself and being born the way you are. Embrace the beauty of this country. The United States is an amalgamation of diversity. And America needs

Muslim girls to change the game. Muslims to show you that it is okay to be who you are. Muslims to show you the importance of putting yourself out there to make people comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Go into the world as you are. Don’t wait for people to accept you and to beckon you out the door.

Inspire people to do the same. Really, we are all bound together through one trait. LEADERS. WE ARE ALL LEADERS IN EVERY FORM THAT WE ASSUME.

[5centsapound]

[bebeliciousness]

Bruno Barbey: Morocco

[bebeliciousness]

“degenaan/xasilooni in Somali, this means: ‘calmness’, ‘stillness’,’peaceful’. - i am drawn to men with calm faces, silent bodies and still eyes. men with peaceful aura’s that suggest they must know God better than most- must practice patience, and prayer longer than most. men who do not anger easily, but are able to contain inside themselves raging storms- who only whisper weightless angst into the bossom of their lovers at night. i have always known, that one of these days- i will fall for the calming voice and companionable silence of a man who collects words in order to thatch together meaningful speech and beautiful thoughts. and he will be the father of my children, and they will resemble him more than me, none of my swinging moods and jagged tongue but all of his gentle strength. because i find balance in them calm men and women, who teach me to speak of pain with quiet reserve and understand that inner strength lies in talking through- and happiness in finding peace.”

— - degenaan/xasilooni, f.gabdon (via thegabdonwrites)

[bebeliciousness]

[bebeliciousness]

[bebeliciousness]

Kanuri attire [Borno, Nigeria]