About The Book

Practical Guidebook of Essential Islamic Sciences is a commentary on the three essential sciences that have characterised the Islam of the West – Andalus and North and West Africa – from the earliest days: fiqh, ‘aqida and tasawwuf. It is refined and distilled from Shaykh Ali Laraki’s teaching the justly famed al-Murshid al-Mu‘in of ‘Abd al-Wahid ibn ‘Ashir to students, young and old, while imam of communities in Madrid, Norwich, Newark (US) and Cape Town.

The author is Shaykh Ali Laraki al-Husaini whose family, including a long line of noted scholars, stem from Fez, the capital city of knowledge forNorth Africa. He grew up between Morocco and Spain, and is bi-lingual in Arabic and Spanish, as well as being almost equally fluent in French and English. He studied fiqh in the traditional manner with distinguished scholars such as Shaykh Muhammad an-Naifar and Shaykh Muhammad al-Lakhwa (ex-professors in the Jami‘ az-Zaituna of Tunis) and the late Sidi Muhammad al-Wazzani of Melilla, may Allah show mercy to them all. He is currently resident in Leicester (UK) and is Senior Lecturer at the Meem Institute.

Al-Murshid al-Mu‘in by Shaykh ‘Abd al-Wahid (d. 1040 AH / 1631 CE) summarises the deen as outlined in the hadith of Jibril on Islam, Iman and Ihsan in 317 verses.