Here I am, sitting at my computer after a rather eventful night. My name is Christina Abdul-Hamid, and I'm a woman with a story to share with you. I was born in the City of Hasbaya in the Republic of Lebanon, but raised in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. My parents, Phillip Abdul-Hamid and Annabelle Mansur moved to the Confederation of Canada in the...
I forgot to name the books that inspired me to write this story: - "The Sheik" is a 1919 novel by Edith Maude Hull - "A Son of the Sahara" by Louise Gerard (1921); "The Flight of the Phoenix" 1964 novel by Elleston Trevor "The Sheltering Sky" 1949 by Paul Bowles "The Sheik" is a novel set around the time it was written - so just after World War I. The fema...
Necessity is definitely the mother of reinvention, as has often been said. This holds true in all parts of the world. Take Noor Al-Gergawi for example. Born into a wealthy family in the City of Dubai, crown jewel of the United Arab Emirates, Noor experienced nothing but luxury all the days of her life. Vacations in Vienna, Paris and Los Angeles, and shopping...
The House of Al Saud has ruled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Heartland of the Islamic world, for over a century. Their excesses are well-known, especially the younger Princes and Princesses who are more likely to eschew tradition than their predecessors. Caught between the modern world and the most conservative nation on earth, they're forever straddling...
It's Thursday morning, and I lie on my bed, sighing profoundly. Tonight, at midnight, I'm finally getting paid. As of right now, though, a quick logon into my CIBC account reveals my combined assets totaling one dollar and seventeen cents. Why is that a problem, you may wonder? Yeah, why can't a brother wait until Friday? Um, it's my lady Fayruza "Fay" Bin S...
Divya's newfound assertiveness and her will to try and lead a decent traditional married life started serving her well. She had effectively neutralized the hold Jose had over her. The job did mean a lot to Jose, so after that time she destroyed his phone, he decided to abandon or at least suspend his plans to bed Divya again. He taught her driving, without...
You are one crazy broad, I thought to myself as I woke up, all cuffed up, after one helluva night, in my girlfriend Afaf Madani's bed. Man, I went to Mansion Night Club the night before for an African Student Union party, and I barely remember anything. Not your standard fare for yours truly, I must insist on saying. My name is Kader Suleiman and I'm a young...
Half an hour later, the party had started dispersing and the guests started to leave. Mayank told Divya the rehearsed lie about having to go to the lawyer's office in Dallas. Divya didn't say anything to Mayank but in her mind, she thought about whether this was something engineered by Bashir to take a chance at her. In fact, she was sure of it. Musa then d...
Note to the reader: The following story is fiction and takes places during an interrogation of 19-year old Lieutenant Gabi Aloni , who is doing his national service in the Israeli army, which is compulsory for Israeli Jews. Gabi deserted from the army, he had been working at Checkpoint 300, which is a large Israeli military checkpoint on the entrance/exist f...
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus- Mya: "Anthropology..., what is anthropology, I hear you ask? Well, broadly speaking we are interested in people, human societies and formation of culture. We draw on social, linguistically and biological sciences, the humanities and the natural sciences to explain human behaviour and interaction with societ...