"Malik, dammit, you mean, you really like my fat ass, farts and all?" Jewel Rosenthal asked with a big grin on her face, looking at her boyfriend Malik Ali with a mixture of incredulity and amusement. Inside Jewel's dorm, on the south side of Ottawa, things were heating up, thanks to a certain Muslim gentleman who made it downright impossible for the usually studious Jewel to get any studying done...
From the first moment they met during an interfaith discussion between Jewish students and Muslim students at the University of Ottawa, Jewel Rosenthal knew that Malik Ali was different from the others...and not just because he was tall, dark-skinned and devastatingly handsome and absolutely sure of himself. Nope, there was something unique about Malik Ali that Jewel Rosenthal couldn't quite comprehend, yet felt drawn to...
Something told Jewel that Malik, the tall, handsome and well-dressed Somali Muslim stud was nothing but trouble. The kind of guy that nice Jewish feminist gals like Jewel stayed away from...if they were wise. Malik Ali arrived at the interfaith discussion held in the University of Ottawa auditorium and stole the show...totally blowing away his detractors.
Taking the podium, Malik Ali took control of the discussion, calling upon Muslim students and Jewish students to respect one another, as the patriarch Abraham, revered in Judaism and Islam, would want...all the while holding a certain Middle-Eastern democracy accountable. By the end of the discussion, numerous young women and men flocked to the tall, well-dressed, outspoken young Muslim student.
Jewel remembered feeling surprised and a bit peeved by Malik Ali's cockiness. As the Somali Muslim stud spoke, Jewel checked his Facebook profile on her iPhone. According to Facebook, Malik Ali was twenty three years old, born in the City of Montreal, Quebec, to Somali immigrant parents. Oh, and he was in the civil engineering program at the University of Ottawa. What in hell was he doing at a discussion on religion, politics and human rights?