As I marveled at God’s wisdom, I thought about Malala – the girl who stood up for her education. And I also thought about the people who so heinously tried to snatch that right away from her by shooting her in the head. Had they not heard about God’s first command to Muslims? Did they not know that the Prophet Muhammad paid special attention to his wife Ayesha’s education? She was so well-educated that after his death, even his most senior disciples regarded her as their teacher.

Malala faced opposition to education because she is a girl. Had they not heard the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus? The Quran says that her mother expected a boy and was dismayed when a girl was born instead. However, God did not value Mary any less because of her gender. He honored her when he placed her on the path of knowledge in a monastery full of men. A girl in a man’s profession? It was not only unthinkable, it was revolutionary. But God deemed a girl worthy and appropriate for his knowledge and service. Empowered by the fact that God gives us all strength through education, I celebrate Malala’s prize and her cause.

As a fellow Muslim woman, I am motivated by the legacy of educated Muslim females that Malala follows. Her young age reminds me of another little girl named Nafeesa bint Al-Hassan. She was the great great-granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Nafeesa – meaning a precious gem- was 8 years old when she entered the realm of knowledge. By the time she was 13, she became known as Nafeesat ul Ilm — precious gem of knowledge — someone from whom adult male scholars came to benefit. Not only was she the epitome of knowledge, she took a stand against oppression just as 15-year-old Malala did. Nafeesa’s words, “As you are in power, you follow a policy of injustice and oppression, and you fire people unfairly, ruining their livelihood,” held the rulers accountable for their corruption and abuse of power, and she influenced major policy change in Egypt.

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After I graduated from college, I tried to figure out a way through which I could follow the legacy of these brave educated women. I realized that my liberal arts college degree was not enough to fully reclaim my narrative as a Muslim woman. And that’s how I found myself at Qalam Institute, a Muslim seminary in Arlington, Tex., in order to ground myself in the traditional Islamic sciences.