Him & His Muslimah

Letter

A letter from HRH

25/06/21

Assalamu Alaikum everyone,

It's HRH here. I don't know what to say now that the time has come; there are just too many emotions blended. The past week has been full of laughter and tears as we've concluded this book. But hopefully, this letter will be able to express my emotions to the most accurate feelings.

This book was written by me and my best friend, MKS. We started this book in 2017, as hopeful teenagers who wanted to bring everything we had into the writing community.

Before writing this book, we were discovering more about Islam and falling in love with our beautiful religion. As we'd both been on Wattpad since 2014, we had seen all sorts of books and genres, having tried our hand at writing before as well.

But we only discovered the spiritual genre a few months before writing this, and it was like a whole new world. Suddenly, the doors were opened to a plethora of Muslim romance novels- it was finally characters we could relate to and be inspired by. Our first book from this genre was 'A Muslim's Romantic Journey' by KittyCrackers. Even looking back on it, I remember the thrill I felt when first reading that- I felt so connected to the characters and their experiences because they were also Muslim.

It made me feel like I could live my life that way too, righteously in the way of Islam.

So we came up with the idea of writing our spiritual romance novel. At first, we intended to have MKS writing and me editing. I didn't intend on writing this book specifically, because I believed I still had a lot to learn and I would rather support my best friend rather than write.

However, she invited me to put in my own words as well and somehow, we both ended up writing this together.

Writing this book with one of my favourite people ever was like a dream come true. It got me through some challenging years of my life and the biggest changes I've encountered as well. But no matter what changed in my life, I had this to come back to.

There are also definitely challenges when it comes to writing a book with someone else.  But we made it work in the best way possible. Whilst we had our friendship, we also maintained a professional outlook when it came to our work. And I'm so grateful to her for working with me on this and always being a support system for me.

This book has helped me express myself in ways that I used my own life experiences to relate to the characters. Sometimes what the characters said were reflections of real-life conversations or thoughts I've had. Whether it was when dealing with a difficult situation or a moment of happiness- I wrote it from my heart.

A consistent representation in this book was Zoya and Naimat's friendship. I felt so connected to this trope because it reminded me of me and my best friend, MKS. There were certain things they said to each other that I've either said or wanted to say. It resonated with me and at times got me teary-eyed. Writing this kind of scene was me putting my emotions on paper, becoming vulnerable myself. And whenever I did that, I liked that part of my writing the most. I feel like the best type of writing is the genuine kind.

And I'm so happy that so many of you read what we wrote and expressed with our words. I'm happy people could relate to our characters sometimes or see them as role models. I'm very thankful to all of you.

Most importantly I have to thank Allah for letting us get this far. Without Allah's will, none of this would have happened. I am so thankful that this was written in my fate and Allah opened this possibility up for us.

Overall, it was all a very heart-warming experience, and we practically grew up in our important years with this by our sides and it feels sad having to close this chapter of our lives. But in some ways, it is just the beginning of another journey. Our end goal is to get this published and even from now we will be working towards that goal tirelessly.

Thank you so much, everyone, I will miss this.

-HRH

As Salamu Alaykum,

It took me a long time to come on and write this letter because this is the very last bit remaining for this book. After this, it's official that we won't have more to write and the thought of that is somewhat frightening.

Starting this book was one of the greatest things in my life. It started off as something solo, and I usually spoke to HRH for inspiration and ideas, but soon we merged our passion and creativity; it was the best thing to happen for this book and for our friendship. Of course, we had disagreements and issues, but we worked our way through this book with determination.

Zoya and Zaib's story is really close to my heart because there's a beautiful, healthy relationship along with some realistic conflicts; there is familial love, heartwarming friendships and most importantly the Qadr (fate) of Allah.

When we started this book, we were young teenagers who just wanted a cool halal romance book; therefore, we didn't think to perfect the factual details. We are thankful for the comments pointing out things which cause a significant leap of faith and we are working on changing a lot. We will work hard to make this a great piece for everyone to enjoy.

I am so thankful for anyone who's given this book a chance and stayed with us for the majority of its run. It's finally complete and we bid farewell with lovely memories.

-MKS

Future Plans

02/01/22

As we've said before, we started this book in 2017 and just finished this year in 2021 and because of that, there's been a huge change in our writing skills over time. We always joke about this, but as authors, we strongly dislike the first half of this book. It was when we didn't have a direction for this novel and intended on a different ending. That's why there's a big gap in the context of the beginning to the end. Moreover, there are endless plotholes that we are aware of and want to fix to achieve the best story we can.

And that's why we will be officially revising this book this year. We'll be going through the whole book, thoroughly editing and quite a bit is going to change. At least in the first half of this book. So if you come back and see some changes, don't be surprised. We just feel like we could do so much better in terms of our writing, and polish the rough areas in the story. You may even see changes in some characters but we will still preserve the main couple of course. We are going to take the constructive criticism we've received throughout the story into account as well.

So we hope you will continue to give us your love and support as we now edit this book and take our first steps towards offline publishing. It could take 6 months or way more to perfect this book but 2022 will be a year of positive changes and we hope you will enjoy what we will offer.

PS: If there's any questions for the characters then please leave them here. The Him&His Muslimah cast would love to respond!

Thank you.
Jazak Allah Khair