[attach id=268905 size="medium"]Malala Yousafzai[/attach]

The story of Malala, the Pakistani schoolgirl the Taliban tried to kill because she wanted an education for herself and other Muslim girls, brings to mind the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Oliver Relin.

On the back outside cover it states: ‘In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, a mountaineer called Greg Mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school.’

He went on to build 55 schools, but along the way he met severe opposition from the head of one village who, urged by the Taliban, issued a ‘fatwa’ against Mortenson, an American, because he was encouraging the education of Muslim women.

A local religious scholar, who wanted a school in his village, wrote to the Supreme Council of Ayatollahs in Qom, asking Iran’s leading clerics, the ultimate authority to the world’s Shia, to rule on whether the ‘fatwa’ was justified.

This was the Council’s eloquent reply to Mortenson:

‘Dear Compassionate of the Poor, Our Holy Koran tells us all children should receive education, including our daughters and sisters. Your noble work follows the highest principles of Islam, to tend to the poor and sick. In the Holy Koran there is no law to prohibit an infidel from providing assistance to our Muslim brothers and sisters. Therefore, we direct all clerics in Pakistan to not interfere with your noble intentions. You have our permission, blessings, and prayers.’