The attack by the Taleban on the Pakistani teenage student Malala Yousufzai from the Swat valley last week is extremely vicious and universally condemnable.
She has become a victim of her lofty ideals to fight for the rights of all Pakistani girls to get education in the area where some extremist elements have been torching educational institutions, especially girls schools, in order to thwart female education.
Malala, an intelligent and a brilliant student in her school, came into prominence, when she started writing and debating her views highlighting the importance and necessity of female education in Pakistan, where basic education in general has been neglected by the successive governments in the country for the last 65 years.
Now the most troubling question arising from the attack on 14-year-old Malala is why would an organization such as the Taleban try to kill a child, who is expressing her inherent human need to receive education.
Do not the Taleban, who profess to be following the basic tenets of Islam, know that Islam encourages learning and thought? Are they not aware of the several Hadiths on the subject of the importance of education for all?
Several such questions are beginning to emerge in the minds of Muslims, suspecting the motives of the attackers, if or whether they were even Muslims or not? I doubt that a Muslim, even a bad one, will ever resort to such tactics, just to silence an innocent Muslim girl with high hopes for the need of freedom of education to women in Pakistan.
I am pretty sure that if and when the culprits are caught and interrogated, we will be able to discover an underground agency at work. And if that is discovered, I dare the government of Pakistan to divulge the truth and nothing but the truth, behind this un-Islamic act.
We all wish Malala Yousufzai a speedy recovery and a long life. — Muhammad Arshad, Alkhobar
Attack on Malala
