Laila

While growing up, Laila's father played such an important character in his daughter's life. If you consider the fact that Laila barely had a mother, you will see that the only two people she could rely on were her father and Tariq. In a time when most women were still seen merely as wives and mothers, her father was the one who made Laila believe that she could be so much more, that she had the ability to change the world. As a former professor he believed that education was the number one priority for Laila, anthing else, such as marriage, could wait. Hakim was not an affectionate man, nor a particularly emotional one - as shown in Chapter 21, in which he surprisingly talks to Laila about her brothers' death, and how much he really suffers for it.