The Islamic Will: A Practical Guide

About the authors

Abdalhaqq Bewley: Shaykh Abdalhaqq Bewley accepted Islam in 1968 and spent several years in Morocco studying Islam. Since that time he has worked with Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi on the establishment of Islam and Muslim communities, which has led to periods living and teaching in Nigeria, the United States, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Spain, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom. He is the author of Islam, Its Basic Practices and Beliefs, Zakat: Raising a Fallen Pillar, The Four Madhhabs of Islam, The Natural Form of Man, and The Islamic Will: A Practical Guide, among other works. In collaboration with his wife, the renowned Arabic translator Aisha Bewley, he has been responsible for The Noble Qur'an: A New Rendering of its Meaning in English, Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik, and Muhammad: the Messenger of Allah, being the ash-Shifa of Qadi Iyad. He has also contributed to the translation of Tafsir al-Qurtubi and edited works including The Four Imams by Muhammad Abu Zahra. Shaykh Abdalhaqq currently resides in Norwich where he serves as Rector of the Muslim Faculty of Advanced Studies.

Aisha Bewley: Aisha Bewley (b. 1948 CE) is one of the most prolific and respected translators of classical Arabic Islamic literature into English. Born in the United States, she earned a BA in French and an MA in Near Eastern languages at the University of California, Berkeley, and undertook further study at the American University in Cairo. She embraced Islam in 1968 and has since devoted more than four decades to rendering the texts of the Islamic tradition into clear, accessible English. Her best-known work is The Noble Qur'an, a translation of the meanings of the Qur'an produced with her husband, Abdalhaqq Bewley, and first published in 1999. Among her landmark translations are the Muwatta' of Imam Malik ibn Anas (1989), a foundational early collection of hadith and Maliki fiqh, and the multi-volume Tafsir of al-Qurtubi (2003 onward). Her wider output spans creed, law, and Prophetic biography, including abridgements and renderings of works such as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's writing on the soul after death and classical descriptions of the noble character and appearance of the Prophet, peace be upon him. WorldCat records her as author or translator of dozens of works across many editions, and in 2023 she was named Muslim Woman of the Year by The Muslim 500, which recognizes the world's most influential Muslims. Her translations are valued for fidelity to the Arabic and readable English, and remain in steady use among English-speaking students of the tradition.

Ahmad Thomson: Ahmad Thomson (b. 1950 CE) is a British Muslim barrister and author. He was born in Chipata, Zambia, where he spent his early years, and received his schooling in Zimbabwe and England before reading law at the University of Exeter, graduating in 1972. He embraced Islam in 1973. Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1979, he went on to practice for many years in fields including charities, discrimination, and Muslim personal law. In 1993 he co-founded the Association of Muslim Lawyers, and from the mid-1990s he led Wynne Chambers in London. Alongside his legal career, Thomson has written and co-written widely on Islamic subjects, with a particular interest in comparative religion, history, and eschatology. He is best known for Dajjal: The Anti-Christ, a study drawing on Qurʾan and Sunna concerning the end of time. With the writer Muhammad Ata ur-Rahim he produced revised editions of Jesus, Prophet of Islam, which examines the Islamic understanding of ʿIsa, and the historical study Islam in Andalus, on the rise and fall of Muslim Spain. His other works include The Difficult Journey, The Way Back, and The Last Prophet. His writing aims to present Islamic teaching to a general English-reading audience in plain, accessible terms.