Guidance from Quran

  “So where are you from?” Laana asked as the taxi drove away. “I’m from Egypt but my family lives in New York.” Alaya said. “Uh huh? What brings you to Boston?” asked Laana ever so curiously. “Um….its just…I graduated from high school just a few weeks ago and I’d like apply to a university away from home.” Alaya said, quickly making up a story. “Oh….so you are an undergraduate?” Laana said, somewhat disappointed. “Yeah but I….I don’t have a job as of yet but I’ve already applied for one somewhere in….Boston.” “Oh….nice! So you are staying in Boston only IF it works out?” “No….it will work out. I mean I have a pretty good resume.” “Oh...ok.” Laana said, as she crossed her legs arrogantly as she looked away purposely and started searching something from her handbag. Alaya immediately realized that Laana’s sense of pride heightened after knowing how ‘low’ she was. And that Laana was clearly trying to show off by checking her gold wrist watch and...

Alaya kept looking at the still body lying on the floor about 10 feet away from her until she lost sight of it because of the crowd that surrounded it. Her heart was still thumping against her chest as the scene of the accident kept replaying in the eyes of her mind. She could hear the people were talking about him. But she could not pay attention to what they were talking about. Until some men moved away all of a sudden. As Alaya looked carefully, she saw a pool of blood oozing out of the man’s head. She felt dizzy immediately though she saw it from far away. She stood up and turned to walk away from the scene. But just then, she heard two people having a conversation near her. “Who was that? Do you happen to know the guy?” an old man asked. “Yeah….I think he is that hotelier guy from the Lightspeed businesses.” another elderly man answered. Alaya did not look back at them until she heard the last words from the second man. Those two men were western and complete st...

Chapter Eleven Mahmood and Waleeda waited anxiously for the future son-in-law to come and meet their daughter after the rough encounter they’d had. But a couple of weeks went by without any visit or call from them. Mahmood was too ashamed to call them on his own as he viewed what Alaya did as a total ‘disgrace.’ Alaya on the other hand was not sure how to feel about what was going on. She was actually quite busy with her final A level exams to be thinking about her future marriage. At times while studying, she’d think what kind of a mentality Layaan must have to marry her while she was still a school girl. Not the kind she’d like for sure. Nonetheless Alaya was worried about her parents. No matter how much she despised them for what they had planned for her it still bothered her to see them worried. She hated herself for feeling that way but she couldn’t help it. She secretly wished for Layaan to come back faster so that his father could pay her father’s debts and she could ...

                   Alaya could not believe what she was hearing. Layaan’s father fought against Raphael’s business? Because Raphael apparently ‘stole’ to grow his business?! “Is this all true?” Alaya asked, out of the blue as the men were shaking their heads as though to ‘sympathize’ the business they were talking about. “Well yes Alaya. All of it happened just a week ago. The hotelier who managed all hotels of the company was badly coning another company to eventually take over it. But thankfully the small company’s manager had a talk with me and we fought against them. The CEO of the Lightspeed businesses wouldn’t take the blame on himself and put the blame on the manager of the department. Nonetheless, he was fined handsomely despite the great mind tricks he attempted to play….” Ahmed explained. “Pfftt…...do you call them great mind tricks dad? He almost got himself in jail. A...

Chapter Nine Days passed quickly as Alaya waited impatiently for a new chapter of her life to start. It was either going to be that she liked Layaan enough for her to forget her past love or she was going to want to spit on him if he was still the same guy from her childhood. He used to be a spoilt brat who used to chew on paper just to appear cool to the other kids and he was always going to tell his dad if someone messed with him. Kudos to his dad who was a lawyer back in the day and never saw a fault in his darling son. Any issue of Layaan that would come up will always eventually end with another student’s suspension. Money does get you wherever you want to, Alaya used to think to herself. She can only imagine the kind of wealth they will have, when she heard her father say that Layaan’s dad owns the equivalent of all the wealth in Egypt. Alaya isn’t sure whether it was an exaggeration or a lie altogether because she never saw Layaan’s father going to an office or anythi...