Dear Believer,

This book changed my life completely. It isn’t anything like The Giver, Harry Potter, or Ambiguous Adventure by Hamidou Kane, but it is something special.

You’ve got to picture my life when I first became Muslim and maybe you’ll begin to understand.

There I was thinking about how everything was Haram or an innovation of some sort. Then I started studying here and there. I started sitting with a few teachers and decided I wanted to learn Islam properly. I heard that Sh. Uthaymeen was Hanbali and I heard of this shaykh named Musa Furber who was a scholar of the Hanbali and Shafi’i schools of jurisprudence.

So what did I do?

I bought some of his translated books and Sh. Joe Bradford’s as well. I adamantly refused to research anything online because there is nothing better than a good book, patience, and absorbing all of that new information.

So that’s what I did.

I read, read, and read. Many times the books that I read didn’t directly answer the questions that I had, but I was learning nonetheless. I reminded myself that this was part of learning and that I was creating a foundation for myself. Eventually the questions I had would be answered.

And they were.

Concepts I once found problematic became beloved to me and practices I once loved became disliked.

I remember one of my teacher’s Abdul Wahhab Saleem (also in Malaysia now with Sh. Musa) once told me that this is what the path of knowledge is like. In the beginning everything is black and white and as you learn more you become even more stringent. Eventually you come to a place where everything is allowed, until finally you balance out.

However, it all takes time.

I guess my point here is that you need to be patient with yourself because that is what the path is like.

Find a teacher, read some books, stop relying on Q&A websites and Youtube videos and watch how your faith transforms.

Oh and buy all of Sh. Musa’s books because no one translates the classics like Sh. Musa.

https://musafurber.com/publications/

Rajab 26th, 1440
April 2nd, 2019

Your brother,
Arthur K. Richards