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Archive for category Domestic Policy

Poverty in Pakistan: TEDxHouston – Cristal Montanez Baylor – Hashoo Foundation

Posted by admin in Domestic Policy, Economics, Global Issues, Pakistan's Hall of Shame on December 2nd, 2012

Cristal Montanez Baylor is the Executive Director of Hashoo Foundation USA. She leads initiatives to promote Hashoo Foundation’s Women’s Empowerment through Honey Bee Farming Project – “Plan Bee”- in the US. The project empowers women in the remote Northern Areas of Pakistan by expanding employment opportunities and generating a stable source of income through the sale of high-quality honey. The project is the winner of the prestigious World Challenge 08 Award competition sponsored by BBC and Newsweek in association with Shell, and it is a featured commitment on the Clinton Global Initiative website. Cristal believes that expanding income generating programs will strengthen the communities and help prevent the influence of extremism in Pakistan.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

 

 

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6eC_juWLYE

 

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Pakistan’s Energy Crisis – A Holistic Picture [1 of 2]

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Domestic Policy on October 19th, 2012

These days Pakistanis are facing acute electricity shortage  and it is continuously soaring, crossing the 6000 MW level. Resultantly, the people are forced to stay without electricity for more than 12-14 hours in cities and around 16 hours in rural areas. The country suffered from worst power crisis last year which then provoked violent protests all over Pakistan. But the situation has not been improved and the protests continue at the same scale as witnessed last year. The deepening power crisis has forced many businesses to close down. Consequently tens of thousand people have been rendered jobless and the number is feared to increase following this worsening crisis.
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ENERGY SCENARIO: A MANIFEST OF LACK OF VISION,POOR PLANNING AND POOR GOVERNANCE

It is hard to believe that only seven years back, in 2004, Pakistan had 30% surplus in generating capacity compared with demand. There were discussions at that time of exporting even the surplus to India. And now in August 2011, power shortage has reached 7,000 Megawatt (MW), about 40% of the demand, which has resulted in 10 hours of load shedding in urban areas and much more in rural areas. According to the prevailing circumstances, the situation is going to worsen in future.

The current situation is a combined result of lack of vision and poor planning, inaction, lack of institutional capacity, poor governance, and mismanagement.

Up till 2003-04 the countrywide power demand growth was only 3%-4% per year, but rose to 10% in 2007-08 following a high economic growth. The 2005 Medium-Term Development Plan targeted an installed capacity of 27,420 MW by June 2010.However the actual capacity in June 2010 was only 20,651 MW, with a shortfall of 6,769 MW (25%).

About 4,670 MW of capacity was added to the system between 2000 and 2010 of which only 1,619 MW was from hydro, including Ghazi Barotha which with installed capacity of 1,450 MW was commissioned in 2004.

The prolonged load shedding has severely affected all sectors of the economy; be it the industrial production, agricultural activities, offices, educational institutions, or homes.

Ironically, there seems to be no respite in the foreseeable future. Different reasons are given by different people and institutions such as the installed capacity less than the demand, expensive contracts with independent power producers, high system losses, power thefts, and nonpayment by some major private and public sector consumers. But public is confused about the true reason for this nuisance and questions if there are more than one reasons, what are those and what is the relative importance of each. The most important being: what is the way out?

In this article am going to review the holistic picture of the issue of energy shortage in Pakistan, starting with an overall picture, followed by discussion on key factors responsible for power shortage, and closing with options to overcome.

The first thing that comes to mind when faced with energy shortage is the installed capacity of the generating facilities being less than the demand. True, but in addition, we must keep in mind that all capacity may not be available at all times because some units may be out of service due to scheduled maintenance, breakdown, or in case of hydroelectric power,  the water level in reservoir may be less and/or the water to be released through the power units is less.

Total Installed capacity in 2009 was about 19,786 MW, net available varies from 14,500 MW in winter to 17,500 MW in summer. Hydropower units lose about 40% of their generating capacity in winter due to lower water levels in the reservoirs and lower availability of water for release through turbines. In 2008-09, total energy generation was 91,616 gigawatt-hours (GWh). The current capacity mix is: hydel 31.7%, thermal 66.3%, and alternate energy and nuclear 2.0%. Actual generation during 2008-09 from different sources was: Oil 34.9%, Gas 32.7%, hydel 30.6%, coal 0.1%, and nuclear 1.7%.

It is hard to believe that only seven years back, in 2004, Pakistan had 30% surplus in generating capacity compared with demand. There were discussions at that time of exporting even the surplus to India. And now in August 2011, power shortage has reached 7,000 Megawatt (MW), about 40% of the demand, which has resulted in 10 hours of load shedding in urban areas and much more in rural areas. According to the prevailing circumstances, the situation is going to worsen in future.

The next important aspect is transmission and distribution. According to the World Bank,transmission and distribution losses in Pakistan were 22% in 2008 which is among the highest in the world compared with 6% losses in China and USA, and 11% in the Philippines.

 Higher losses are due to old and inefficient facilities, and pilferage. Distribution losses reflect the difference between the energy a local power distribution company receives from transmission and the energy it bills to the customers. Hence, it includes both distribution system losses as well as pilferage. Distribution losses in Hyderabad, Peshawar, and Karachi are more than 30% compared to 7% to 15% in other distribution companies.

According to the 2008-09 data, the distribution losses in various companies are:

Hyderabad 31.5%,

Peshawar   31.2%,

Karachi       38.5% (includes transmission losses),

Faisalabad   9.1%,

Gujranwala  9.4%,

Islamabad   7.7%,

Lahore       12.8%,

Multan       15.1%,

and Quetta 14.3%.

This clearly indicates high power pilferage in three distribution companies, which is in line with the general information we get from the media. This also indicates the potential of an increase in revenue with improved governance.

And don’t consider that you get all what you bill. Generally, the poor and middle class consumers and small commercial and industrial units pay their full bills in time. However, many influential consumers including the government offices don’t pay their bills in full and in time. Many government offices consume energy much more than what their funds allocated for energy allow, and, hence, they cannot pay and use their influence to avoid disconnection with the result that the receivables keep on mounting.

Commoners also misuse the poor-friendly tariff structure — lowest tariff for first 50 units and then gradual increase for each slab. Consumers in this category frequently misuse the provision by getting many meters installed to get a lower overall bill.

Let’s see what energy mix has to do with load shedding. Each source of electricity has different cost of production, hydel being the cheapest and the rented power plants using imported oil being the most expensive. All these sources ultimately feed to the grid from where the energy is transmitted and then distributed. In 2009-10, the average consumer-end tariff was Rs 6.20 per KWh compared to the consumer-end average cost of Rs 8.75 per KWh, which clearly indicates that the current power tariffs are below the cost-recovery level. The difference is shouldered by the Government as a subsidy which rose to Rs. 226.6 billion in 2009-10, despite the fact that tariff were raised by 34% in 2009-10. The Government has its own financial problems and thus does not pay the subsidy in full and in time. Thus, PEPCO, which has the overall responsibility of managing the power system, cannot pay in full to the power producers which in turn cannot pay to companies supplying the fuel. Thus the fuel companies cannot supply fuel which results in shutting down the power units. This circular debt is a major factor responsible for power shortage at magnitude much higher than what could be anticipated because of other factors like lack of capacity.

THE CIRCULAR DEBT WHICH STARTED IN 2006, CURRENTLY STANDS AT MORE THAN RS. 250 BILLION.

It is important to note that the Government has to shoulder in the subsidy from the budget, the difference between the average cost of energy (Rs. 8.75 per unit) and the average consumer-end tariff (Rs. 6.20 per unit), which currently stands at Rs 2.55 per unit. The current annual subsidy of more than Rs. 200 billion is a heavy burden and is unsustainable. Question that arises is: how can we reduce this? It will be hard to raise the tariff to the point that it can recover the full cost of production, transmission, and distribution considering the affordability of the consumers. The current load shedding whether voluntary or involuntary is helping the Government reduce its subsidy by supplying less energy through implementation of longer hours of load shedding. This, however, is counterproductive for the economy and unpopular with the people.

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What has made America a Super Power? America is the most inventive culture on the planet?

Posted by Shahroz Bashir in Domestic Policy on August 13th, 2012

 

Rabbi zidni ilma
O my Lord! Advance me in Knowledge
[surah Ta-Ha; 20:114]

رَّبِّ زِدْنِى عِلْمًا

Why Pakistan lags behind even tiny Taiwan in Science and Technology?
 
Look at the Literacy Rate in Pakistan-Out of 183 Coutries Rated Pakistan is no.160, just below Papua New Guinea.
158 158 Haiti 62.1 [j]
159 159 Morocco 61.5 [10] [11]
160 160 Papua New Guinea 60.1
161 161 Pakistan 58.2
162 162 Mauritania

 

       
 (Reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate:

 
When a Pakistani Engineer named Waqar came up with a prototype water kit for car engines, the political mandarins of Pakistan’s scientific establishment, like Dr.Attaur Rehman and the famous Pakistani cynic, Dr.Pervez Hoodbhoy came both guns blazing to shoot down Waqar’s idea. Waqar, may have been a charlatan, but, he had moxie to stand in front of the whole nation to defend his contraption. Both scientists showed complete lack sensitivity and were arrogant to the point of being, as Shakespeare would put it full of “self-love.” None of these two gentlemen have achieved an iota for Pakistan. They have spent billions of a poor nation’s treasury in traipsing around the world attending, representing Pakistan. Pakistan is one of the most backward nation, except in nuclear science, in scientific inventiveness. This is due to the scientific demi-gods like Attaur Rehman and Pervez Hoodbhoy, inept, Pakistani bureaucracy has created. In the scientific world, they are nobodies, zilch, nada, zero…But, they hold the growth of sceince hostage in Pakistan. They are the hijackers, who are keeping the growth of science and technology in Pakistan captive.
 
OUR KEY QUESTION
 
What has made America a Super Power? America is the most inventive culture on the planet?
 
No matter whether we love or hate America, no one will disagree that it is the most inventive nation on Earth. 

What makes America the most inventive culture on the planet? When I go to international meetings, why do leaders from countries with the highest test scores tell me they wish their kids could be more like ours (American)?

It’s because America values:

  1. Free Thinking,
  2. Creativity
  3. Innovation.
  4. American are raised kids to discover their talents and
  5. pursue them toward futures full of possibilities.
  6. As an American nation, America helps students rise to the standards of life in a knowledge economy.
  7. America’s first priority has to be raising achievement in equal measure for all kids, regardless of their:

 

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    •  
      •  
        •  
          •  
            • Background,
            • Income 
            • Location.

 

Quote from:

LUCY FRIEDMAN- An American Teacher

Lucy Friedman

Lucy N. Friedman is founding president of TASC (The After-School Corporation). She is co-chair of NYSAN (New York State Afterschool Network), a founding board member of the Afterschool Alliance and a founding member of the executive committee of the Coalition for Science After School. Before joining TASC, she was the founder and executive director of Safe Horizons (formally known as Victim Services) in New York City.

Nathan Myhrvold on Being the Most Unpopular Guy at D10

MAY 30, 2012 

Nathan Myhrvold knows that he is one of the least popular guests at this week’s D: All Things Digital conference, and that’s okay with him.

“I never was a popular kid in class,” the Intellectual Ventures CEO and former Microsoft executive said at D10 on Wednesday. “I’m not going to be popular in this class. If I want popularity, I go to a chef’s convention.”

Although Myhrvold’s company does some of its own inventing — working on things like a new type of nuclear reactor and a broadband antenna — the company is best known for amassing a huge number of patents invented by others and then seeking to license those patents or else pursue revenue in court.

Myhrvold made the case to the crowd, though probably unsuccessfully, that his company serves a purpose similar to that of venture capital or private equity in the process of aiding innovation.

Myhrvold also quoted his own past statement at an earlier D conference, saying, “If people don’t find what you are doing threatening, then it is probably not very important.”

 

NASA engineer: disruptive corporate culture got us to Mars

By  | August 9, 2012

 

NASA’s recent success in landing and deploying the tweeting Curiosity rover on Mars was more than a technical success — it is the result of opening up the agency to fresh, unconventional thinking.

In a WOBI presentation a few months back (prior to the recent Curiosity landing), Brian Muirhead  chief engineer at NASA, explained how a corporate culture that encouraged disruptive innovation paved the way for a cost-effective and successful Mars landing program.  Corporate culture has long been a key challenge for the space agency — independent commissions studying the two Shuttle disasters concluded that NASA’s insular command-and-control culture led to the oversights that doomed the Challenger and Columbia spacecraft.

It was innovation — or more appropriately, disruption — borne of necessity.  NASA’s annual budget was shrinking, while the cost of interplanetary travel was growing.  The agency’s leaders realized that they could not continue business as usual. Muirhead describes a meeting in which NASA administrator gave Muirhead’s team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory a tough mandate: take risks, but do not fail. “What would most people do?” Muirhead says. “They would go back to their office, sit down at their computer, and polish up their resume.”

 

Muirhead’s team was tasked with sending a spacecraft to Mars within a three-year timeframe — on a budget of less than $200 million. That’s “less of the cost of the movie Titanic,” Muirhead recalls.

NASA’s approach was to adopt the disruptive technology and business practices espoused by Clayton Christensen, he adds — finding low-cost ways of meeting underserved or unserved needs. To build such a culture of disruptive innovation, Muirhead advises, first to establish an atmosphere of openness and integrity. “The leaders set the tone. How you model relationships with your team is critical. Everyone will follow that.  If you want high performance and integrity, you need to model openness and honesty.”

Encouraging microknowledge — versus micromanagemet — will also foster greater innovation, he says. “Everybody hates the micromanager. Microknowledge. is what everybody will get a hold of and will help you when problems show up.”

 

 Here is a short story of another lowly person in the South Asian Sub-Continent, who despite being a lowly clerk, became one of the greatest mathematician of modern times.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

It is one of the most romantic stories in the history of mathematics: in 1913, the English mathematician G. H. Hardy received a strange letter from an unknown clerk in Madras, India. The ten-page letter contained about 120 statements of theorems on infinite series, improper integrals, continued fractions, and number theory (Here is a .dvi file with a sample of these results). Every prominent mathematician gets letters from cranks, and at first glance Hardy no doubt put this letter in that class. But something about the formulas made him take a second look, and show it to his collaborator J. E. Littlewood. After a few hours, they concluded that the results “must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them”.

Thus was Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) introduced to the mathematical world. Born in South India, Ramanujan was a promising student, winning academic prizes in high school. But at age 16 his life took a decisive turn after he obtained a book titled A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics. The book was simply a compilation of thousands of mathematical results, most set down with little or no indication of proof. It was in no sense a mathematical classic; rather, it was written as an aid to coaching English mathematics students facing the notoriously difficult Tripos examination, which involved a great deal of wholesale memorization. But in Ramanujan it inspired a burst of feverish mathematical activity, as he worked through the book’s results and beyond. Unfortunately, his total immersion in mathematics was disastrous for Ramanujan’s academic career: ignoring all his other subjects, he repeatedly failed his college exams.

As a college dropout from a poor family, Ramanujan’s position was precarious. He lived off the charity of friends, filling notebooks with mathematical discoveries and seeking patrons to support his work. Finally he met with modest success when the Indian mathematician Ramachandra Rao provided him with first a modest subsidy, and later a clerkship at the Madras Port Trust. During this period Ramanujan had his first paper published, a 17-page work on Bernoulli numbers that appeared in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. Still no one was quite sure if Ramanujan was a real genius or a crank. With the encouragement of friends, he wrote to mathematicians in Cambridge seeking validation of his work. Twice he wrote with no response; on the third try, he found Hardy.

Hardy wrote enthusiastically back to Ramanujan, and Hardy’s stamp of approval improved Ramanujan’s status almost immediately. Ramanujan was named a research scholar at the University of Madras, receiving double his clerk’s salary and required only to submit quarterly reports on his work. But Hardy was determined that Ramanujan be brought to England. Ramanujan’s mother resisted at first–high-caste Indians shunned travel to foreign lands–but finally gave in, ostensibly after a vision. In March 1914, Ramanujan boarded a steamer for England.

Ramanujan’s arrival at Cambridge was the beginning of a very successful five-year collaboration with Hardy. In some ways the two made an odd pair: Hardy was a great exponent of rigor in analysis, while Ramanujan’s results were (as Hardy put it) “arrived at by a process of mingled argument, intuition, and induction, of which he was entirely unable to give any coherent account”. Hardy did his best to fill in the gaps in Ramanujan’s education without discouraging him. He was amazed by Ramanujan’s uncanny formal intuition in manipulating infinite series, continued fractions, and the like: “I have never met his equal, and can compare him only with Euler or Jacobi.”

One remarkable result of the Hardy-Ramanujan collaboration was a formula for the number p(n) of partitions of a number n. A partition of a positive integer n is just an expression for n as a sum of positive integers, regardless of order. Thus p(4) = 5 because 4 can be written as 1+1+1+1, 1+1+2, 2+2, 1+3, or 4. The problem of finding p(n) was studied by Euler, who found a formula for the generating function of p(n) (that is, for the infinite series whose nth term is p(n)xn). While this allows one to calculate p(n) recursively, it doesn’t lead to an explicit formula. Hardy and Ramanujan came up with such a formula (though they only proved it works asymptotically; Rademacher proved it gives the exact value of p(n)).

Ramanujan’s years in England were mathematically productive, and he gained the recognition he hoped for. Cambridge granted him a Bachelor of Science degree “by research” in 1916, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (the first Indian to be so honored) in 1918. But the alien climate and culture took a toll on his health. Ramanujan had always lived in a tropical climate and had his mother (later his wife) to cook for him: now he faced the English winter, and he had to do all his own cooking to adhere to his caste’s strict dietary rules. Wartime shortages only made things worse. In 1917 he was hospitalized, his doctors fearing for his life. By late 1918 his health had improved; he returned to India in 1919. But his health failed again, and he died the next year.

Besides his published work, Ramanujan left behind several notebooks, which have been the object of much study. The English mathematician G. N. Watson wrote a long series of papers about them. More recently the American mathematician Bruce C. Berndt has written a multi-volume study of the notebooks.  1997 The Ramanujan Journal was launched to publish work “in areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan”.

 Pakistanis Must Overcome Professional Jealousies in Order for the Nation to Grow

In Pakistan, cannot ignore new ideas until the are throughly whetted by unbiased scientists and engineers, who do not have their political axis to grind. Pakistan needs an inventive culture.  Its history is steeped with inventions. A nation which had one lowly nuclear research lab size reactor, became a GLOBAL NUCLEAR POWER.

We have done it.

We can do it again.

But, first we have to be intellectually honest with ourselves. We need to overcome the germs of envy, greed, and corruption. The Fathers of Pakistan’s nuclear program from Ghulam Ishaq Khan, A.Q.Khan, I.H.Usmani, Z.A.Bhutto, put the interests of the nation above their own personal interests.

We have become a nation steeped in “hasad,” and “Jalan.”

We have to put the interest of our nation above our own.

We have to be like the orphan boy carrying his baby on his back on a snowy night, who came to the door of a church in Boystown, USA. When the priest the boy, if the baby was heavy, the boy replied, “

 

Quotes

  • When government disappears, it’s not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place.
    • Keynote address at the “One Planet, One Net” symposium sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (10 October 1998)
  • We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, “I speak as a citizen of the world” without others saying, “God, what a nut.”
    • “One Planet, One Net” symposium (10 October 1998)
  • You can’t incent a dead person. No matter what we do, Hawthorne will not produce any more works, no matter how much we pay him.
    • Debate with Jack Valenti at Harvard University Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society (1 October 2000)
  • Americans have been selling this view around the world: that progress comes from perfect protection of intellectual property. Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we’ve seen — the Internet — has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don’t get in the way of this ideology.
  • There’s going to be an i-9/11 event. Which doesn’t necessarily mean an Al Qaeda attack, it means an event where the instability or the insecurity of the internet becomes manifest during a malicious event which then inspires the government into a response. You’ve got to remember that after 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed. … So I was having dinner with Richard Clarke and I asked him if there is an equivalent, is there an i-Patriot Act just sitting waiting for some substantial event as an excuse to radically change the way the internet works. He said “of course there is”.

The Future of Ideas (2001)

The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World

A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense. Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The “taken for granted” is the test of sanity; “what everyone knows” is the line between us and them…

  • A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense. Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The “taken for granted” is the test of sanity; “what everyone knows” is the line between us and them.
    This means that sometimes a society gets stuck. Sometimes these unquestioned ideas interfere, as the cost of questioning becomes too great. In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.
  • All around us are the consequences of the most significant technological, and hence cultural, revolution in generations. This revolution has produced the most powerful and diverse spur to innovation of any in modern times. Yet a set of ideas about a central aspect of this prosperity — “property” — confuses us. This confusion is leading us to change the environment in ways that will change the prosperity. Believing we know what makes prosperity work, ignoring the nature of the actual prosperity all around, we change the rules within which the Internet revolution lives. These changes will end the revolution.

May the Source Be With You (2001)

“May the Source Be With You“, Wired magazine article (9 December 2001) adapted from The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
Lawrence Lessig (born 3 June 1961) is an American academic and political activist. He is most famous as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. He is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center, an advisory board member of the Sunlight Foundation and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Creation always involves building upon something else. There is no art that doesn’t reuse. And there will be less art if every reuse is taxed by the appropriator.

  • We live in a world with “free” content, and this freedom is not an imperfection. We listen to the radio without paying for the songs we hear; we hear friends humming tunes that they have not licensed. We tell jokes that reference movie plots without the permission of the directors. We read our children books, borrowed from a library, without paying the original copyright holder for the performance rights.
  • In arguing for increasing content owners’ control over content users, it’s not sufficient to say “They didn’t pay for this use.”
  • Creation always involves building upon something else. There is no art that doesn’t reuse. And there will be less art if every reuse is taxed by the appropriator. Monopoly controls have been the exception in free societies; they have been the rule in closed societies.
  • While control is needed, and perfectly warranted, our bias should be clear up front: Monopolies are not justified by theory; they should be permitted only when justified by facts. If there is no solid basis for extending a certain monopoly protection, then we should not extend that protection. This does not mean that every copyright must prove its value initially. That would be a far too cumbersome system of control. But it does mean that every system or category of copyright or patent should prove its worth. Before the monopoly should be permitted, there must be reason to believe it will do some good — for society, and not just for monopoly holders.
  • The current term of protection for software is the life of an author plus 70 years, or, if it’s work-for-hire, a total of 95 years. This is a bastardization of the Constitution’s requirement that copyright be for “limited times.” By the time Apple’s Macintosh operating system finally falls into the public domain, there will be no machine that could possibly run it. The term of copyright for software is effectively unlimited.

If the Internet teaches us anything, it is that great value comes from leaving core resources in a commons, where they’re free for people to build upon as they see fit.

  • While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible. Once a company that produces a certain product goes out of business, it has no simple way to uncover how its product encoded data. The code is thus lost, and the software is inaccessible. Knowledge has been destroyed.
  • I would dramatically reduce the safeguards for software — from the ordinary term of 95 years to an initial term of 5 years, renewable once. And I would extend that government-backed protection only if the author submitted a duplicate of the source code to be held in escrow while the work was protected. Once the copyright expired, that escrowed version would be publicly available from the copyright office.
    Most programmers should like this change. No code lives for 10 years, and getting access to the source code of even orphaned software projects would benefit all. More important, it would unlock the knowledge built into this protected code for others to build upon as they see fit. Software would thus be like every other creative work — open for others to see and to learn from.
  • The problems with software are just examples of the problems found generally with creativity. Our trend in copyright law has been to enclose as much as we can; the consequence of this enclosure is a stifling of creativity and innovation. If the Internet teaches us anything, it is that great value comes from leaving core resources in a commons, where they’re free for people to build upon as they see fit.

OSCON 2002

Keynote address at the Open Source Convention (24 July 2002)

Free culture was carried to America; that was our birth — 1790. We established a regime that left creativity unregulated…

  • If you understand this refrain, you’re gonna’ understand everything I want to say to you today. It has four parts:
Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
Ours is less and less a free society.
  • In 1774, free culture was born. In a case called Donaldson v. Beckett in the House of Lords in England, free culture was made because copyright was stopped. In 1710, the statute had said that copyright should be for a limited term of just 14 years. But in the 1740s, when Scottish publishers started reprinting classics — you gotta’ love the Scots — the London publishers said “Stop!” They said, “Copyright is forever!”… These publishers demanded a common-law copyright that would be forever. In 1769, in a case called Miller v. Taylor, they won their claim, but just five years later, in Donaldson, Miller was reversed, and for the first time in history, the works of Shakespeare were freed, freed from the control of a monopoly of publishers. Freed culture was the result of that case.
  • That free culture was carried to America; that was our birth — 1790. We established a regime that left creativity unregulated. Now it was unregulated because copyright law only covered “printing.” Copyright law did not control derivative work. And copyright law granted this protection for the limited time of 14 years.
  • Forget the 18th century, the 19th century, even at the birth of the 20th century. Here’s my favorite example, here: 1928, my hero, Walt Disney, created this extraordinary work, the birth of Mickey Mouse in the form of Steamboat Willie. But what you probably don’t recognize about Steamboat Willie and his emergence into Mickey Mouse is that in 1928, Walt Disney, to use the language of the Disney Corporation today, “stole” Willie from Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill.”
    It was a parody, a take-off; it was built upon Steamboat Bill. Steamboat Bill was produced in 1928 — no 14 years — just take it, rip, mix, and burn, as he did to produce the Disney empire.

We have a massive system to regulate creativity. A massive system of lawyers regulating creativity as copyright law has expanded in unrecognizable forms, going from a regulation of publishing to a regulation of copying.

  • Now the Disney Corporation could do this because that culture lived in a commons, an intellectual commons, a cultural commons, where people could freely take and build. It was a lawyer-free zone.
    It was culture, which you didn’t need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century. It was built upon a constitutional requirement that protection be for limited times, and it was originally limited. Fourteen years, if the author lived, then 28, then in 1831 it went to 42, then in 1909 it went to 56, and then magically, starting in 1962, look — no hands, the term expands.
    Eleven times in the last 40 years it has been extended for existing works — not just for new works that are going to be created, but existing works. The most recent is the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act.
  • The meaning of this pattern is absolutely clear to those who pay to produce it. The meaning is: No one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to the Brothers Grimm. That though we had a culture where people could take and build upon what went before, that’s over. There is no such thing as the public domain in the minds of those who have produced these 11 extensions these last 40 years because now culture is owned.
  • Remember the refrain: We always build on the past; the past always tries to stop us. Freedom is about stopping the past, but we have lost that ideal.
  • We have a massive system to regulate creativity. A massive system of lawyers regulating creativity as copyright law has expanded in unrecognizable forms, going from a regulation of publishing to a regulation of copying.
  • Law and technology produce, together, a kind of regulation of creativity we’ve not seen before.

The problem is their insane rules are now being applied to the whole world. This insanity of control is expanding as everything you do touches copyrights.

  • Here’s a simple copyright lesson: Law regulates copies. What’s that mean? Well, before the Internet, think of this as a world of all possible uses of a copyrighted work. Most of them are unregulated. Talking about fair use, this is not fair use; this is unregulated use. To read is not a fair use; it’s an unregulated use. To give it to someone is not a fair use; it’s unregulated. To sell it, to sleep on top of it, to do any of these things with this text is unregulated. Now, in the center of this unregulated use, there is a small bit of stuff regulated by the copyright law; for example, publishing the book — that’s regulated. And then within this small range of things regulated by copyright law, there’s this tiny band before the Internet of stuff we call fair use: Uses that otherwise would be regulated but that the law says you can engage in without the permission of anybody else. For example, quoting a text in another text — that’s a copy, but it’s a still fair use. That means the world was divided into three camps, not two: Unregulated uses, regulated uses that were fair use, and the quintessential copyright world. Three categories.
    Enter the Internet. Every act is a copy, which means all of these unregulated uses disappear. Presumptively, everything you do on your machine on the network is a regulated use. And now it forces us into this tiny little category of arguing about, “What about the fair uses? What about the fair uses?” I will say the word: To hell with the fair uses. What about the unregulated uses we had of culture before this massive expansion of control?
  • Now, here’s the thing you’ve got to remember. You’ve got to see this. This is the point. (And Jack Valenti misses this.) Here’s the point: Never has it been more controlled ever. Take the addition, the changes, the copyrights turn, take the changes to copyrights scope, put it against the background of an extraordinarily concentrated structure of media, and you produce the fact that never in our history have fewer people controlled more of the evolution of our culture. Never.
  • Here’s a story: There was a documentary filmmaker who was making a documentary film about education in America. And he’s shooting across this classroom with lots of people, kids, who are completely distracted at the television in the back of the classroom. When they get back to the editing room, they realize that on the television, you can barely make out the show for two seconds; it’s “The Simpsons,” Homer Simpson on the screen. So they call up Matt Groening, who was a friend of the documentary filmmaker, and say, you know, Is this going to be a problem? It’s only a couple seconds. Matt says, No, no, no, it’s not going to be a problem, call so and so. So they called so and so, and so and so said call so and so.
    Eventually, the so and so turns out to be the lawyers, so when they got to the lawyers, they said, Is this going to be a problem? It’s a documentary film. It’s about education. It’s a couple seconds. The so and so said 25,000 bucks. 25,000 bucks?! It’s a couple seconds! What do you mean 25,000 bucks? The so and so said, I don’t give a goddamn what it is for. $25,000 bucks or change your movie. Now you look at this and you say this is insane. It’s insane. And if it is only Hollywood that has to deal with this, OK, that’s fine. Let them be insane. The problem is their insane rules are now being applied to the whole world. This insanity of control is expanding as everything you do touches copyrights.

It’s a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don’t, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you’re off their radar screen.

  • It’s insane. It’s extreme. It’s controlled by political interests. It has no justification in the traditional values that justify legal regulation. And we’ve done nothing about it. We’re bigger than they are. We’ve got rights on our side. And we’ve done nothing about it. We let them control this debate. Here’s the refrain that leads to this: They win because we’ve done nothing to stop it.
  • J. C. Watts is the only black member of the Republican Party in leadership. He’s going to resign from Congress. He’s been there seven and a half years. He’s had enough. Nobody can believe it. Nobody in Washington can believe it… In an interview two days ago, Watts said, Here’s the problem with Washington: “If you are explaining, you are losing.” If you are explaining, you’re losing. It’s a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don’t, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you’re off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem. Six years after this battle began, we’re still explaining. We’re still explaining and we are losing. They frame this as a massive battle to stop theft, to protect property… They extend copyrights perpetually. They don’t get how that in itself is a form of theft. A theft of our common culture. We have failed in getting them to see what the issues here are and that’s why we live in this place where a tradition speaks of freedom and their controls take it away.
  • If you don’t do something now, this freedom that you built, that you spend your life coding, this freedom will be taken away. Either by those who see you as a threat, who then invoke the system of law we call patents, or by those who take advantage of the extraordinary expansion of control that the law of copyright now gives them over innovation. Either of these two changes through law will produce a world where your freedom has been taken away. And, If you can’t fight for your freedom . . . you don’t deserve it.
  • This is not a left and right issue. This is the important thing to recognize: This is not about conservatives versus liberals.
    In our case, in Eldred, we have this brief filed by 17 economists, including Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Ronald Kost, Ken Arrow, you know, lunatics, right? Left-wing liberals, right? Friedman said he’d only join if the word “no-brainer” existed in the brief somewhere, like this was a complete no-brainer for him. This is not about left and right. This is about right and wrong. That’s what this battle is.

Free Culture (2004)

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity (2004) – Full text online

Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables.

  • I believe it would be right for common sense to revolt against the extreme claims made today on behalf of “intellectual property.” What the law demands today is increasingly as silly as a sheriff arresting an airplane for trespass. But the consequences of this silliness will be much more profound
    • Introduction
  • A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now. Like Stallman’s arguments for free software, an argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don’t get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can’t get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is against that extremism that this book is written.
  • There has never been a time in history when more of our “culture” was as “owned” as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now.

By insisting on the Constitution’s limits to copyright, obviouslyEldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was fighting a kind of piracy — piracy of the public domain… Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects us all.

  • Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables.
    In addition to these important harms, there is one more that was important to our forebears, but seems forgotten today. Overregulation corrupts citizens and weakens the rule of law.
    The war that is being waged today is a war of prohibition. As with every war of prohibition, it is targeted against the behavior of a very large number of citizens. According to The New York Times, 43 million Americans downloaded music in May 2002. According to the RIAA, the behavior of those 43 million Americans is a felony. We thus have a set of rules that transform 20 percent of America into criminals.
  • By insisting on the Constitution’s limits to copyright, obviously Eldred was not endorsing piracy. Indeed, in an obvious sense, he was fighting a kind of piracy — piracy of the public domain. When Robert Frost wrote his work and when Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, the maximum copyright term was just fifty-six years. Because of interim changes, Frost and Disney had already enjoyed a seventy-five-year monopoly for their work. They had gotten the benefit of the bargain that the Constitution envisions: In exchange for a monopoly protected for fifty-six years, they created new work. But now these entities were using their power — expressed through the power of lobbyists’ money — to get another twenty-year dollop of monopoly. That twenty-year dollop would be taken from the public domain. Eric Eldred was fighting a piracy that affects us all.

The most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not the protection of “property” but the rejection of a tradition. Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. Their aim is to assure that all there is is what is theirs.

  • Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public domain is nothing more than “legal piracy.” But it is not piracy when the law allows it; and in our constitutional system, our law requires it. Some may not like the Constitution’s requirements, but that doesn’t make the Constitution a pirate’s charter. 
    As we’ve seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eric Eldred discovered, we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly extended, and extended, and extended. We have created the perfect storm for the public domain. Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again.
  • It is valuable copyrights that are responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and “Rhapsody in Blue.” These works are too valuable for copyright owners to ignore. But the real harm to our society from copyright extensions is not that Mickey Mouse remains Disney’s. Forget Mickey Mouse. Forget Robert Frost. Forget all the works from the 1920s and 1930s that have continuing commercial value. The real harm of term extension comes not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result.
  • Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an “engine of free expression.”
    But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I’ve indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.

It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history — free culture.
If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.

  • Now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious burden on the creative process. If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before because there are no formalities.
  • The most powerful and sexy and well loved of lobbies really has as its aim not the protection of “property” but the rejection of a tradition. Their aim is not simply to protect what is theirs. Their aim is to assure that all there is is what is theirs.
    It is not hard to understand why the warriors take this view. It is not hard to see why it would benefit them if the competition of the public domain tied to the Internet could somehow be quashed.
  • A simple idea blinds us, and under the cover of darkness, much happens that most of us would reject if any of us looked. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in ideas that we don’t even notice how monstrous it is to deny ideas to a people who are dying without them. So uncritically do we accept the idea of property in culture that we don’t even question when the control of that property removes our ability, as a people, to develop our culture democratically. Blindness becomes our common sense. And the challenge for anyone who would reclaim the right to cultivate our culture is to find a way to make this common sense open its eyes.
    So far, common sense sleeps. There is no revolt. Common sense does not yet see what there could be to revolt about.
  • When it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government should be to “seek balance,” then count me with the silly, for that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, become?
  • It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history — free culture.
    If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.
  • The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in copyright, produces. It is not just that there are a few powerful companies that control an ever expanding slice of the media. It is that this concentration can call upon an equally bloated range of rights — property rights of a historically extreme form — that makes their bigness bad.
  • We Americans have a long history of fighting “big,” wisely or not. That we could be motivated to fight “big” again is not something new.
    It would be something new, and something very important, if an equal number could be rallied to fight the increasing extremism built within the idea of “intellectual property.” Not because balance is alien to our tradition; indeed, as I’ve argued, balance is our tradition. But because the muscle to think critically about the scope of anything called “property” is not well exercised within this tradition anymore.
    If we were Achilles, this would be our heel. This would be the place of our tragedy.
  • I’ve told a dark story. The truth is more mixed. A technology has given us a new freedom. Slowly, some begin to understand that this freedom need not mean anarchy. We can carry a free culture into the twenty-first century, without artists losing and without the potential of digital technology being destroyed. … Common sense must revolt. It must act to free culture. Soon, if this potential is ever to be realized.

Show me why your regulation of culture is needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your lawyers away.

  • Common sense is with the copyright warriors because the debate so far has been framed at the extremes — as a grand either/or: either property or anarchy, either total control or artists won’t be paid. If that really is the choice, then the warriors should win.
    The mistake here is the error of the excluded middle. There are extremes in this debate, but the extremes are not all that there is. There are those who believe in maximal copyright — “All Rights Reserved” — and those who reject copyright — “No Rights Reserved.” The “All Rights Reserved” sorts believe that you should ask permission before you “use” a copyrighted work in any way. The “No Rights Reserved” sorts believe you should be able to do with content as you wish, regardless of whether you have permission or not. … What’s needed is a way to say something in the middle — neither “all rights reserved” nor “no rights reserved” but “some rights reserved” — and thus a way to respect copyrights but enable creators to free content as they see fit. In other words, we need a way to restore a set of freedoms that we could just take for granted before.
  • We will not reclaim a free culture by individual action alone. It will also take important reforms of laws. We have a long way to go before the politicians will listen to these ideas and implement these reforms. But that also means that we have time to build awareness around the changes that we need.
  • I’m a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at the end that I would love to live.
    Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one strong view queers the law.
    The evidence of this bending is compelling. I’m attacked as a “radical” by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures in the history of this branch of the law.
  • The legal system doesn’t work. Or more accurately, it doesn’t work for anyone except those with the most resources. Not because the system is corrupt. I don’t think our legal system (at the federal level, at least) is at all corrupt. I mean simply because the costs of our legal system are so astonishingly high that justice can practically never be done.
  • The law should regulate in certain areas of culture — but it should regulate culture only where that regulation does good. Yet lawyers rarely test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic question: “Will it do good?” When challenged about the expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, “Why not?”
    We should ask, “Why?” Show me why your regulation of culture is needed. Show me how it does good. And until you can show me both, keep your lawyers away.
  • We, the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm against talking about politics. It’s fine to talk about politics with people you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme. We say what our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say.

 

Positive Feedback and Education Lead to Creativity

Society as a whole has long relied on punishment as a way of controlling behavior. Many of us naturally hone in on all of the things we dislike or want to change and respond with disapproval—often in a highly punitive manner. But punishment is unpredictable in how it will impact behavior and may cause additional negative behaviors.

In contrast, control based on positive contingencies can create a social climate in which everyone can flourish.

 Focus on positive changes, instead of failures. “I like the way we ignore Bella when she doesn’t get it right and wait to praise her when she does,” one third grade student shared as part of his journal entry for the session. It is this kind of reflection and sharing that promotes real learning and growth that can extend far beyond the classroom to the nation at large.

Training an animal even requires positive reinforcement

Positive reinforcement training focuses on the learner’s success (a dog in this case), developing and shaping behaviors and skills, unlike punishment, which may help the learner understand how to avoid an aversive, but doesn’t necessarily teach an acceptable alternative.

Teachers participating in the program at Yorkwood Elementary School commented about the usefulness of ignoring unwanted behavior in order to eliminate it. “I didn’t realize I was actually reinforcing the wrong thing every time I acknowledged the student for interrupting,” said one teacher after a classroom session in which I described the difference between correction-based methods and positive-reinforcement specific to training the family dog to sit for petting instead of jumping up on them to say hello. It’s counterintuitive to wait for the appropriate response to reinforce; it takes some practice and a lot of patience, but once we recondition ourselves to pay attention to and praise the good stuff instead of continually correcting mistakes, the results are reinforcing and become second nature.

References

http://allthingsd.com/20120530/nathan-myhrvold-on-being-the-most-unpopular-guy-at-d10/

http://www.usna.edu/Users/math/meh/ramanujan.html
 
http://www.audaciousideas.org/author/lucy-friedman/

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Educational Score Performance – Country Rankings

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Domestic Policy on August 1st, 2012

 

 

These tables show student performance on subjects:
1.Reading,
2.Scientific
       3.Mathematical
literacy scales, mean score, measured in 2006, and reported in OECD’s Education at a Glance 2009.
Students were tested at age 15 and therefore approaching the end of compulsory schooling.

 

Source: UNESCO. 2004. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005: Education for All, the Quality Imperative . Statistical Annex, Table 2. Paris: UNESCO

 

SOURCE: OECD in Figures 2009
  • Student Performance on the Reading, Scientific and Mathematical Literacy Scales, mean score, 2006
  • Countries are ranked highest to lowest score
  • Countries ranked by reading scores. In the other tables below, countries are ranked by mathematics and science scores

See also notes below the tables.

Rank

                                            
————————————————————————————————————-
COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST READING SCORES

Country


Read  Math  Sci

  1. 1 Korea                                        556 547 522
  2. 2 Finland                                      547 548 563
  3. 3 Canada                                     527 527 534
  4. 4 New Zealand                            521 522 530
  5. 5 Ireland                                      517 501 508
  6. 6 Australia                                   513 520 527
  7. 7 Poland1                                    508 495 498
  8. 8 Sweden                                    507 502 503
  9. 9 Netherlands                             507 531 525
  10. 10 Belgium                                 501 520 510
  11. 11 Switzerland                           499 530 512
  12. 12 Japan                                    498 523 531
  13. 13 United Kingdom                    495 495 515
  14. 14 Germany                               495 504 516
  15. 15 Denmark                               494 513 496
  16. 16 OECD average                     492 498 500
  17. 17 Austria                                  490 505 511
  18. 18 France                                  488 496 495
  19. 19 Iceland                                  484 506 491
  20. 20 Norway                                 484 490 487
  21. 21 Czech Republic1                  483 510 513
  22. 22 Hungary                               482 491 504
  23. 23 Luxembourg                         479 490 486
  24. 24 Portugal1                              472 466 474
  25. 25 Italy                                       469 462 475
  26. 26 Slovak Republic                    466 492 488
  27. 27 Spain                                    461 480 488
  28. 28 Greece                                 460 459 473
  29. 29 Turkey1                                447 424 424
  30. 30 Russian Federation              440 476 479
  31. 31 Mexico                                  410 406 410
  32. 32 Brazil1                                   393 370 390
  33. 33 United States                           .. 474 489
Rank
——– Country
———————– Maths
———– Science
————- Reading
COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST MATHEMATICS SCORES
————-
1 Finland                                   548 563 547
2 Korea                                     547 522 556
3 Netherlands                           531 525 507
4 Switzerland                            530 512 499
5 Canada                                  527 534 527
6 Japan                                     523 531 498
7 New Zealand                          522 530 521
8 Belgium                                  520 510 501
9 Australia                                 520 527 513
10 Denmark                               513 496 494
11 Czech Republic1                  510 513 483
12 Iceland                                  506 491 484
13 Austria                                  505 511 490
14 Germany                              504 516 495
15 Sweden                                502 503 507
16 Ireland                                  501 508 517
17 OECD average                    498 500 492
18 France                                 496 495 488
19 United Kingdom                   495 515 495
20 Poland1                               495 498 508
21 Slovak Republic                  492 488 466
22 Hungary                               491 504 482
23 Luxembourg                        490 486 479
24 Norway                                490 487 484
25 Spain                                   480 488 461
26 Russian Federation             476 479 440
27 United States                       474 489 ..
28 Portugal1                             466 474 472
29 Italy                                      462 475 469
30 Greece                                 459 473 460
31 Turkey1                                424 424 447
32 Mexico                                  406 410 410
33 Brazil1                                   370 390 393
Rank
——– Country
———————– Science
————- Reading
————- Maths
Islam’s Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science
by Nidhal Guessoum
Islam's Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science

My rating:

In secular Europe, the veracity of modern science is almost always taken for granted. Whether they think of the evolutionary proofs of Darwin or of spectacular investigation into the boundaries of physics conducted by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, most people assume that scientific enquiry goes to the heart of fundamental truths about the universe. Yet elsewhere, science is under siege. In the USA, Christian fundamentalists contest whether evolution should be taught in schools at all. And in Muslim countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan and Malaysia, a mere 15% of those recently surveyed believed Darwin’s theory to be “true” or “probably true.” This thoughtful and passionately argued book contends absolutely to the contrary: not only that evolutionary theory does not contradict core Muslim beliefs, but that many scholars, from Islam’s golden age to the present, adopted a worldview that accepted evolution as a given. Guessoum suggests that the Islamic world, just like the Christian, needs to take scientific questions — quantum questions — with the utmost seriousness if it is to recover its true heritage and integrity. In its application of a specifically Muslim perspective to important topics like cosmology, divine action and evolution, the book makes a vital contribution to debate in the disputed field of “science and religion.”
COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST SCIENCE SCORES
———–
1 Finland                                   563 547 548
2 Canada                                  534 527 527
3 Japan                                     531 498 523
4 New Zealand                         530 521 522
5 Australia                                527 513 520
6 Netherlands                           525 507 531
7 Korea                                     522 556 547
8 Germany                                516 495 504
9 United Kingdom                     515 495 495
10 Czech Republic1                 513 483 510
11 Switzerland                          512 499 530
12 Austria                                 511 490 505
13 Belgium                               510 501 520
14 Ireland                                 508 517 501
15 Hungary                              504 482 491
16 Sweden                               503 507 502
17 OECD average                    500 492 498
18 Poland1                               498 508 495
19 Denmark                             496 494 513
20 France                                495 488 496
21 Iceland                               491 484 506
22 United States                     489 .. 474
23 Slovak Republic                 488 466 492
24 Spain                                  488 461 480
25 Norway                               487 484 490
26 Luxembourg                       486 479 490
27 Russian Federation            479 440 476
28 Italy                                    475 469 462
29 Portugal1                           474 472 466
30 Greece                               473 460 459
31 Turkey1                              424 447 424
32 Mexico                                410 410 406
33 Brazil1                                 390 393 370
NOTES:
1In these countries, tertiary-type A attainment includes all types of tertiary level degrees.
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OECD Education Rankings – 2011

April 10, 2008 by ourtimes

Countries which belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) produce two-thirds of the world’s goods and services. The organization publishes reports on economic and social factors in the member states. School performance league tables are presented in the OECD report, Education at a Glance 2011. It includes comparison tables of educational performance, class sizes, teachers’ salaries, tertiary education and more.
The report can be downloaded as a PDF document.

► See the top performers in reading, mathematics and science (on this page).

Education at a Glance reports in previous years:  2010 | 2009 | 2008| 2007 |

country where 25-34 year-olds are not better educated than 55-64 year-olds. Chart A1·2 is reproduced here in accordance with the terms specified at: http://www.oecd.org/rights/

Chart A1·2 footnote:
2. Russia: Year of reference 2002.

PISA 2009 survey results

The OECD conducts an international comparison of educational performance every three years. The results for the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment were published in December 2010. For more information see: http://www.pisa.oecd.org/

The chart below shows the top performing countries in reading, mathematics and science, in rank order. The figures are drawn from the Executive Summary of the PISA secondary education test results:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/60/46619703.pdf

2009  Programme for International Student Assessment — test scores
# Reading – Overall Mathematics Science
1 China: Shanghai 556 China: Shanghai 600 China: Shanghai 575
2 Korea 539 Singapore 562 Finland 554
3 Finland 536 Hong Kong 555 Hong Kong 549
4 Hong Kong 533 Korea 546 Singapore 542
5 Singapore 526 Chinese taipei 543 Japan 539
6 Canada 524 Finland 541 Korea 538
7 New Zealand 521 Liechtenstein 536 New Zealand 532
8 Japan 520 Switzerland 534 Canada 529
9 Australia 515 Japan 529 Estonia 528
10 Netherlands 508 Canada 527 Australia 527
11 Belgium 506 Netherlands 526 Netherlands 522
12 Norway 503 China: Macao 525 Chinese taipei 520
13 Estonia 501 New Zealand 519 Liechtenstein 520
14 Switzerland 501 Belgium 515 Germany 520
15 Iceland 500 Australia 514 Switzerland 517
16 Poland 500 Germany 513 United Kingdom 514
17 United States 500 Estonia 512 Slovenia 512
18 Liechtenstein 499 Iceland 507 China: Macao 511
19 Germany 497 Denmark 503 Poland 508
20 Sweden 497 Slovenia 501 Ireland 508
21 France 496 Norway 498 Belgium 507
22 Ireland 496 France 497 Hungary 503
23 Chinese taipei 495 Slovak Republic 497 United States 502
  PISA average : 501
24 Denmark 495 Austria 496 Norway 500
  PISA average : 496  
25 Hungary 494 Poland 495 Czech Republic 500
26 United Kingdom 494 Sweden 494 Denmark 499
  PISA average : 493  
  Reading – Overall Mathematics Science
27 Portugal 489 Czech Republic 493 France 498
28 China: Macao 487 United Kingdom 492 Iceland 496
29 Italy 486 Hungary 490 Sweden 495
30 Latvia 484 Luxembourg 489 Austria 494
31 Greece 483 United States 487 Latvia 494
32 Slovenia 483 Ireland 487 Portugal 493
33 Spain 481 Portugal 487 Lithuania 491
34 Czech Republic 478 Italy 483 Slovak Republic 490
35 Slovak Republic 477 Spain 483 Italy 489
36 Croatia 476 Latvia 482 Spain 488
37 Israel 474 Lithuania 477 Croatia 486
38 Luxembourg 472 Russian Fed. 468 Luxembourg 484
39 Austria 470 Greece 466 Russian Fed. 478
40 Lithuania 468 Croatia 460 Greece 470
41 Turkey 464 Dubai (UAE) 453 Dubai (UAE) 466
42 Dubai (UAE) 459 Israel 447 Israel 455
43 Russian Fed. 459 Turkey 445 Turkey 454
44 Chile 449 Serbia 442 Chile 447
45 Serbia 442 Azerbaijan 431 Serbia 443
46 Bulgaria 429 Bulgaria 428 Bulgaria 439
47 Uruguay 426 Uruguay 427 Romania 428
48 Mexico 425 Romania 427 Uruguay 427
49 Romania 424 Chile 421 Thailand 425
50 Thailand 421 Mexico 419 Mexico 416
51 Trinidad&T. 416 Thailand 419 Jordan 415
52 Colombia 413 Trinidad&T. 414 Trinidad&T. 410
53 Brazil 412 Kazakhstan 405 Brazil 405
54 Montenegro 408 Montenegro 403 Colombia 402
55 Jordan 405 Argentina 388 Montenegro 401
56 Tunisia 404 Jordan 387 Argentina 401
57 Indonesia 402 Brazil 386 Tunisia 401
58 Argentina 398 Colombia 381 Kazakhstan 400
59 Kazakhstan 390 Albania 377 Albania 391
60 Albania 385 Tunisia 371 Indonesia 383
61 Qatar 372 Indonesia 371 Qatar 379
62 Panama 371 Qatar 368 Panama 376
63 Peru 370 Peru 365 Azerbaijan 373
64 Azerbaijan 362 Panama 360 Peru 369
65 Kyrgyzstan 314 Kyrgyzstan 331 Kyrgyzstan 330
PISA average : 493 PISA average : 496 PISA average : 501
  Reading – Overall Mathematics Science

OECD member countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom (UK), United States (USA).

OECD Partner Economies:

Albania, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chinese taipei (Taiwan), Colombia, Croatia, Dubai (UAE), Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macao-China, Montenegro, Panama, Peru, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Shanghai-China, Singapore, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uruguay.

UN reports about OECD countries:

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre publishes reports on the performance of member countries in meeting the needs of their children. You can download any report in the series from the UNICEF-IRC website: Innocenti Report Cards.

References and Acknowledgements

http://www.geographic.org/country_ranks/educational_score_performance_country_ranks_2009_oecd.html

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8614056-islam-s-quantum-question

www.pakdefence.com

http://1.bp.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URCYsRiSUzU

OECD Education Rankings – 2013 Update

 

 

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WAGE JIHAD AGAINST JAHILIYA : 1,000 Pakistani women and girls honour killing victims-Watta satta and swara — the cruel practices against women

Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Domestic Policy on July 23rd, 2012

JIHAD AGAINST JAHILIYA

Pakistanis Must Speak-Out Against the Murders of Our Daughters, Sisters, Mothers, Wives

In Islam Women Are Our Sacred Trust

Wage Jihad Against Jahiliya,

as Our Beloved Prophet (PBUH) Conducted 

 
Watta satta and swara — the cruel practices against women

The Daily Telegraph 2012-03-22: Almost 1,000 Pakistani women and girls were murdered last year in honour killings, according to a new report by the country’s leading human rights group. Too often, said the report, police acted as a ‘coercive force’ against women . Hundreds were killed by their fathers, husbands or brothers, highlighting the frightening scale of violence suffered by women who are frequently treated as second-class citizens and subject to village justice. Many cases are covered up by relatives and sympathetic police officers.
Dr. Zaheer Ahmad Babar

pic

Allah Diwaya Padhar and Jeewan Bakhsh have held a ‘secret’ meeting recently, and after that meeting they both seem very happy. Both are in their late sixties, and friends from their childhood days. 
They are from the same tribe and have been living in various parts of Cholistan – sometimes at the same place and sometimes at different – during these long years. Both have large families comprising their sons and daughters and dozens of grandchildren. 
Jeewan’s wife passed away about two months back after a protracted illness, while Allah Diwaya’s wife lost her eyesight about three years back. She is more than 18 years older than her husband and is seriously ill these days. Lack of treatment facilities in the desert and disinterest on the part of her husband have virtually left her to die. 
They have yet not made public their intentions, but their mutual friends are found discussing the second marriage of Allah Diwaya and Jeewan Bakhsh through “watta satta” (exchange marriage), these days. Allah Diwaya’s youngest daughter, Malookan Mai, is 19-year old, and unmarried, while Jeewan Bakhsh’s 22-year old daughter, Bakhtan Bibi, became a widow two years ago. Continuing with their family traditions, both the family heads have apparently decided to contract new marriages, with each other daughters. 
There may not be any protest in either family, as second, third or even fourth marriages are a norm in the region. The practice is not limited to the underdeveloped region of Cholistan, or even Pakistan in that particular case. Watta satta, or exchange marriage, is a form of marriage involving an arranged and reciprocal exchange of spouses between two groups. 
Sociologists say exchange marriage is most common in societies that have a unilineal descent system emphasising the male line and a consistent expectation of post-marital residence with or near the groom’s family. Often, as among some Australian Aborigines and American Subarctic peoples, a traditional ideal was for a brother and sister from one family to marry a sister and brother, respectively, from another. 
However, marrying off young girls to the men twice or thrice their age, is the worst form of watta satta marriages, being practised in Cholistan and other underdeveloped parts of Pakistan. Nobody ever bothers to ask these young girls what they want. Do they want to marry men of their fathers’ age? The injustice is so deep-rooted that not even women family members question this injustice being committed against their daughters and sisters. In almost all parts of the country, watta satta is continuing in one form or the other. Recently, the national press reported one such incident in Sargodha city. 
The Cantonment police registered a case of watta satta underage marriage. A police team raided and arrested some people over the watta satta marriage of two girls on a complaint filed by a non-governmental organisation. The complainant stated that Saima and Saadia (names changed to protect their identity) were 14 and 12 years old, respectively. Saima was being married to Saadia’s brother, Qasim, 30, and Saadia was being married to Saima’s brother Abid Ali, 50.
Under the Muslim Family Law Ordinance of 1961, a girl under the age of 16 is a child whose marriage is illegal. In cases where girls are under 16 years old, the Hanafi school allows the groom and the bride’s father to sign a temporary Nikah contract. The girl cannot be sent to the groom’s house until she has attained the age of 16 years and approved the contract.
According to figures presented at a seminar in Karachi by the Family Planning Association of Pakistan recently, 30 per cent of all marriages in the country are child marriages though the law bars the marriage of a girl under 16 or a boy under 18. Civil society organisations have been demanding major reforms to the law which dates back to 1929.
Mostly the marriages contracted on the basis of watta satta result in severe disputes between the two families. In case of any clash between one couple, the other couple is affected adversely. If one couple ends up in separation in the form of divorce, the other couple has also to separate ultimately, even if both husband and wife do not want to do so. This situation, many a times; results in loss of lives. 
Daily Tribune Pakistan recently reported the murder of a girl because of a watta satta marriage. A man shot dead his sister in the federal capital in April 2012 after their marriages of exchange ended in divorces. In the beginning, the family tried to hide the murder by claiming that Hasina Bibi, 22, committed suicide. But the police investigation proved that Sher Ali had shot dead his sister. The man believed that his sister was responsible for not only her own separation from her husband but his separation from his wife. To punish her, Sher Ali shot Hasina Bibi dead. 
Like watta satta, there are various other customs and traditions to which Pakistani society is still a slave. Mostly women fall victim to these family traditions. They are discriminated against in pursuance of such customs. Another form of women victimisation prevalent in the country is “vani” or “swara”, giving away of a woman to a rival party to settle a dispute over any issue, from a murder, adultery or abduction to the theft of cattle-heads. 
A woman rights advocacy organisation, Rahnuma describes swara as a practice “where a girl is given as an offering to settle a conflict or dispute.” The practice is most common in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa upper and southern Punjab, where it is known as vani.
In 2004, the parliament of Pakistan passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act under which amendments were made to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Pakistan Penal Code making swara, vani and similar practices a crime. Section 310A, which covers the matter, was inserted in the PPC and reads: “Whoever gives a female in marriage or otherwise ‘badl-e-sulah’ [in exchange for peace] shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment, which may extend to 10 years but shall not be less than three years.”
Tougher laws and arrests made under the new law had led to people disguising the handing over of a woman or girl. The deal is not announced within the community as a swara or vani marriage, though within the families concerned it is known that the woman has been given away as swara and is treated accordingly.
This is tragic to note that the swara girls are married off to the men who are usually far older than the brides, who are often mere children. These girls are usually treated extremely badly or like slaves in the homes of their in-laws. 
In December 2011, parliament passed a series of legislative measures aimed at improving the situation of women. One relevant clause states: “Forcing a woman into marriage for settling a dispute to be a non-bailable offence.”
The superior courts in the country have also taken up the matter with the Peshawar High Court noting that existing laws included in the PPC were insufficient, and directing the KP government to enact a special law to deal with the issue. The court was hearing a case, filed by a plaintiff from Upper Dir district, who said his father and brother had been killed for refusing to hand over his minor sister as swara.
However, it is also a reality that creating awareness and changing mindset of the people is most important to end such cruel practices against women. The making of tougher laws alone could never produced the desired results.

Courtesy:

The Cutting Edge: http://www.weeklycuttingedge.com/

 

international women s day Has anything changed?… http://e.thenews.com.pk/newsmag/mag/detail_article.asp?id=1267
  You! takes a look at some of the age old rituals and customs being carried out by men against women, that still prevail in some parts of the world…  
     
  By Sara Zia Khan  
 

The current state of the world, prima facie is that of educated people; that are progressing in nearly all areas of science, advancing in technology, and getting enlightened when it comes to religion and so on. But if we take a closer look and observe, we will, undoubtedly realise that all this is a facade that we don’t even know we’re putting on. At a second glance we are miserably cruel beings at the mercy of our primitive instincts; upon first signs of danger, we forget all that has been engraved in our minds and resort to bloodshed. In the ancient times, the stronger tribe would kill the weaker tribe’s men, capture their women and exploit them, fast forward a couple of millennia, and the stronger sex is still exploiting the supposedly weaker one. And we come to the question what has changed? Nothing!

 

In the face of modernism, we witness the ugliest, most heinous crimes being carried out by men against women. Welcome to the new era!

 

The insane customs

 

In our country there are still some vicious men who treat their goats better than their women. ‘Karo-kari (honour killing)’, ‘Vani’, ‘Swara’, ‘Wattasatta’, ‘acid throwing’, ‘dowry deaths’ are amongst the most common customs in Pakistan.

 

Karo-kari is a compound word literally meaning ‘black male’ (Karo) and ‘black female’ (Kari), in metaphoric terms for adulterer and adulteress. It can be defined as acts of murder, in which a woman is killed for her actual or perceived immoral behaviour, such as marital infidelity, refusal to submit to an arranged marriage, demanding a divorce, perceived flirtatious behaviour and rape.

 

Vani is a child marriage custom in tribal areas of Pakistan and is widely followed in Punjab. This custom is tied to blood feuds among the different tribes and clans where young girls are forcibly married to the members of different clans in exchange of money or in compensation for crimes and settling of disputes.

 

Swara is similar to Vani in which the accused family gives their girl or girls in marriage to an aggrieved family as ‘compensation’ to settle blood feud.

 

The level of hypocrisy is such that if a man commits a crime, the women of his family are to be punished. Just recently a man gunned his 55-year-old mother down because he thought she was having an affair. On another occasion, a six-month-old baby girl was married off to a 25-year-old man on the basis of Swara. A 19-year-old bride was set ablaze by her husband and her mother-in-law. Three girls were buried alive by their family. And the list continues. I can mention all the recent crimes that were reported but what would that establish? Despite the media uproar in such issues and NGOs working day and night to educate people in order to cut down on the number of women being abused, more than 11,000 cases have been reported since the end of 2009, showing a subsequent 80 per cent rise in violence against women.  And you will be surprised to know that not only illiterate men resort to such punishments but educated men do too. Domestic violence being the most common crime in middle class families, husbands often resort to physically (and mentally) assaulting their wives to vent their frustration out. However, more often than not, these cases go unreported because these families don’t want to ruin their reputations.

 

How has the nation as a whole progressed when individuals know no humanity? Century old customs of Swara and Vani are still being practiced in the country where various Fashion Weeks are being held and there is a rocking party every Saturday night? Correct me if I am wrong but have we really evolved? Are we really different from our ancestors? Has education, technology and awareness really changed the way we think?

 

The Indian factor

 

India is one of the fastest developing countries in the world but when it comes to crimes against women as a whole they are worse than Pakistan. Despite the rapid advancement in the fields of education and technology throughout India during the last decade, the rise in violence against women has remained the same. In the state of Punjab, Bihar, Rajasthan and Haryana more than 34 honour killings were reported during the years 2008-2010. According to Azad India Foundation, as many as 18 women are assaulted in some form or another every hour. Rape, gang rape or any other type of sexual assault is increasing in India by the minute. The country’s capital and by far one of the most developed cities in India; New Delhi is the cauldron of criminal activity.

 

Satti is a religious funeral practice among some Hindu communities in which a recently widowed Hindu woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Even though the practice of Satti has been outlawed in India since 1829, still women are being sacrificed in the name of Satti.

 

A report claims that at least 5000 women die as a result of dowry death per year. If we have, in fact, become modern then why does the size of the dowry given to the bride by her parents matter at all?

 

Asia, when it comes to women’s rights is eons behind in terms of true progress. Believe it or not, female infanticide, a practice which was carried out during the roman era is still prevailing in India, Japan, China and rural parts of Pakistan. And we think we are developing!

 

The Dark Continent

 

Africa is one country in the world where century old customs and practices are still being followed. Poverty, illiteracy and the lack of awareness puts the women of Africa at a greater health risk. The practice of female genital mutilation which is no less than a 100 year old custom is still observed in that part of the world.

 

Young girls are made to bear the agonising pain of getting their private parts cut off by tin blades, broken glass and even knives in order to make them more beautiful. This practice is directly linked with the concept of making a girl more feminine by cutting the ‘unclean’ parts. It also promotes marital fidelity and a girl has to undergo this process to become a woman. It is still strongly believed that if a girl has not been mutilated, she is not pure and less of a woman. An estimated 92 million girls have undergone this brutal process and it is still being carried out privately. The only thing that has changed is the fact that previously, a mid-wife used to perform this procedure, but now a licensed doctor carries on with this process.

 

Another practice that is very common in Africa is that of inheriting a wife. When a man dies his widow is supposed to be inherited by the brother or a relative of her deceased husband so that the property remains within the family. Wife inheritance is often portrayed as an act of generosity in which the widow will have a man to ‘look after’ her. Actually, it is the man that is at the gaining end. Not only does he benefit from his inherited wife’s labour and childbearing potential, but he also gets the property that the deceased husband has left behind. According to the supporters of the custom; this helps the woman to avoid promiscuity, and also appeases the spirit of the deceased.

 

And if women sought separation or divorce, the dowry has to be reimbursed. Often, a woman’s family is unable or unwilling to refund the dowry, and the brothers may abuse her physically forcing her to go back to her husband or in-laws. The fact that the local authorities and the laws are not effective makes Africa a living hell for women.

 

And these are just some of the countries where violence against women is a common practice. It is also happening in developed countries such as America and the UK.

 

The question remains that when will all these practices and customs subside? When will men finally start respecting women? Would there be a time when violence directed towards women becomes non-existent?

 

We are living in a fantasy world where everything seems perfect, but if we probe a little deeper we will see that the very foundation of the world is disintegrating. Modernism is just a term, and in reality we haven’t changed much.

Allah (SWT) in Qu’ran gave Respect to women in Islamic Society

 

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN

ome people are unaware of the importance and value Islam places upon women. Women who do not know this reality, as well as all people with insufficient knowledge of the Qur’an, try to protect their rights by working within their worldview, which follows the logic of unbelief. Social conditions around the world make this reality very obvious. For example, many women continue to be exposed to ill-treatment, violence, and unemployment, and need to be taken care of after their husbands have either divorced or abandoned them, or have died.

These problems will not be solved until people turn to the only source that can provide true and lasting solutions: the Qur’an. No strategy based upon an unbelieving society’s logic and values will succeed, as Allah reveals:

If the truth were to follow their whims and desires, the heavens and Earth and everyone in them would have been brought to ruin. No indeed! We have given them that by which they are remembered [i.e. their honor, eminence and dignity], but they have turned away from it. (Surat al-Mu’minun: 71)

When people base their lives on the rights and wrongs of their own making, the results will always be disastrous. Everything and everybody is thus destined to continue on its path of degeneration.

Given the persistence of the values based on unbelief, and despite being aware of their troubled lifestyle, unbelievers cannot find a lasting solution to their problems. Thus, they find themselves continuing to turn away from the only path that will lead them to prosperity, even though they are very well aware of it.

The only solution is the Qur’an, which provides the easiest, as well as the most content and beautiful path, by which to live. The only path that can lead toward righteousness is His path, for only it leads to goodness and prosperity. Allah reveals that the Qur’an brings people honor and dignity, and that all who abide by its values and follow this righteous path will find success in everything they undertake.

All true and lasting solutions to women’s problems are found in the Qur’an. Islam, which was revealed to guide humanity to salvation, genuinely values women. Many verses protect women and their rights, for the Qur’an eliminated the prevalent misguided stereotypes of women and gave them a respectable position in society. Our Lord teaches that superiority in His presence is based not on gender, but rather on one’s fear and respect of Allah, faith, good character, devotion, and dedication to Him.

Allah has revealed the steps that women need to take to ensure their protection and respect within society, and for them to find the love and dignity that they deserve. All of these measures benefit women and seek to prevent damage to their interests or any form of oppression and unnecessary stress.

In the next section, we will discuss how the Qur’an ensures that women are treated according to their true value and honor. As Allah has revealed, Islam values all people and brings honor, dignity, and respectability to them in both worlds.

The Only Measure of True Superiority

Unbelievers, whose values differ from those revealed in the Qur’an, lead their lives according to their society’s values, which are the product of their own reasoning and therefore unreliable. In one verse, Allah asks the following question:

Do they, then, seek the judgment of the Time of Ignorance? Who could be better at giving judgment than Allah for people with certainty? (Surat al-Ma’ida: 50)

One of the values based on unbelief is the criteria for superiority. The unbelievers’ criteria for distinction and superiority are derived from such worldly values as property, status, career, fame, or physical attraction. If they cannot meet these criteria, they admire those who can and feel relatively worthless in comparison.

As a result, the details of everyday situations become important when classifying people. For example, some people consider it vital that they live in a posh suburb, have the newest and most desirable car, have parents with very successful careers, and have a desirable profession. Or, they want expensive and designer-label clothing, well-placed relatives, a diploma from the best university, and so on. When choosing their friends, associates, or even their potential spouse, they follow these same criteria.

In many countries, people place great importance upon skin color, the language they speak, or their nationality. In fact, the same criteria for superiority apply to all unbelieving societies, with only some minor differences based upon culture, history, and other factors.

At the root of women’s proper role lie the very same wrong criteria. By applying their society’s misguided tradition and self-made criteria, they continue to treat women as second-class citizens.

Allah, on the other hand, reveals that the best and truest criteria is His. The Qur’an reveals that He has only one criterion: a person’s fear and respect of Him:

O humanity! We created you from a male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you might come to know each other. The noblest among you in Allah’s sight is the one who guards against evil [one with the most taqwa]. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware. (Surat al-Hujurat: 13)

O Children of Adam! We have sent down clothing to you to conceal your private parts, as well as fine apparel, but the garment of heedfulness-that is best! That is one of Allah’s Signs, so that, hopefully, you will pay heed. (Surat al-A’raf: 26)

In yet another verse, Allah reveals that this fear and respect is the most beneficial quality that they can attain: “Whatever good you do, Allah knows it. Take provision; but the best provision is the fear [and respect] of Allah. So have fear [and respect] of Me, O people of intelligence!” (Surat al-Baqara: 197) Therefore, people should not strive for wealth and property, or fame and status, but rather for the fear and respect of Allah, for only this quality will make them superior and valued in both worlds.

Allah also advises people not to seek wealth, which has become a measure of superiority among people, but to ask for His good will:

Do not covet what Allah has given to some of you in preference to others-men have a portion of what they acquire and women have a portion of what they acquire; but ask Allah for His bounty. Allah has knowledge of all things. (Surat an-Nisa’: 32)

Thus, those who measure superiority in terms of gender, physical strength, or any other value built upon unbelief are making a great mistake. As He says in the Qur’an: “The men and women who give charity and make a good loan to Allah will have it increased for them, and they will have a generous reward” (Surat al-Hadid: 18). This verse reminds people, men as well as women, that only by living according to the morality that He revealed in the Qur’an can they find the true and superior reward.

Men and Women Are Equal

No doubt, every society knows all of the traditional arguments about women’s ideal role and place. Their social status and importance in the family, whether or not they should work, and other social issues have been discussed seemingly forever. For Muslims, these issues were settled by the Qur’an: Men and women are equal. The facts that men and women have different physical builds and that women are generally weaker than men are irrelevant and cannot be used to reduce women’s value.

What truly matters in Islamic morality is not whether someone is male or female, but whether or not he or she is a believer who fears and respects Allah. Each believer is expected to strive to live by the Qur’an’s morality, for the results of this struggle are what Allah values and will measure in the Hereafter. Allah reveals the qualities that all Muslims, male or female, should have:

The men and women of the believers are friends of one another. They command what is right and forbid what is wrong, keep up prayer and give the alms [zakat], and obey Allah and His Messenger. They are the people on whom Allah will have mercy. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise. (Surat at-Tawba: 71)

As Allah reveals, all Muslims, regardless of their gender, have the same responsibilities: to worship Allah, live according to the Qur’an’s morality, command good and prevent evil, and abide by the Qur’an’s rules and advice. Allah promises everyone who fears and respects the limits that He has established for humanity that He will give them the ability to distinguish right from wrong:

O you who believe! If you have fear of [and respect] Allah, He will give you discrimination, erase your bad actions, and forgive you. Allah’s favor is indeed immense. (Surat al-Anfal: 29)

One’s gender has no bearing on this, for Allah has given everyone an intellect capable of leading him or her to the right path, reaching the right decisions, and giving the right responses in return for belief and devotion. Therefore, intellect has nothing to do with gender; rather, it has everything to do with one’s devotion, fear, and respect of Allah.

Any man or woman who acts on the impulses of the intellect derived from belief can achieve success in many areas. This depends on their will, motivation, and persistence. Believers never rest on their laurels, for it is part of Islamic morality to always strive to be more intelligent, talented, responsible, and virtuous, as well as to seek to always improve upon their character. Allah reveals that believers pray to Him for a character that will make them role models for those around them:

Those who say: “Our Lord, give us joy in our wives and children, and make us a good example for those who guard against evil.” (Surat al-Furqan: 74)

A Muslim woman who does her best in everything she undertakes and who works to develop an exemplary character and morality, will excel in her society. She will carry out her responsibilities competently, reach the right decisions, find the best solutions, and take the most appropriate actions.

As explained earlier, Islam states that men and women are totally equal. For both of them, it all depends on their ability to exceed what is expected of them by realizing the full potential of their character and personality, and by fulfilling their responsibilities. For this reason, believing women do not struggle for equality with men, but exert themselves in the race to do good, defined in the Qur’an as the effort to win Allah’s good pleasure. For this end, they race to become the person most loved by Allah so that they may win His good pleasure and be the nearest to Him. Allah reveals that these efforts determine the Muslim’s superiority over others in this life as well as in the Hereafter:

Such people are truly racing toward good things, and they are the first to reach them. (Surat al-Mu’minun: 61)

Then We made Our chosen servants inherit the Book. But some of them wrong themselves, some are ambivalent, and some outdo each other in good by Allah’s permission. That is the great favor. (Surah Fatir: 32)

The equality between men and women is also seen in the fact that Allah gives them equal rights in this world:

We made everything on Earth adornment for it so that We could test them to see whose actions are the best. (Surat al-Kahf: 7)

Every soul will taste death. We test you with both good and evil as a trial. And you will be returned to Us. (Surat al-Anbiya’: 35)

In the above verses, Allah reveals that He tests men and women so that they can show who is better. In another verse, He says that He will test men and women with various trials until the day they die, and that those who show patience will be rewarded with His mercy:

We will test you with a certain amount of fear and hunger, as well as loss of wealth, life, and fruits. But give good news to the steadfast. (Surat al-Baqara: 155)

Allah gave each man and woman a fixed number of years, holds them both responsible for their choices, gave them a sense of right and wrong, and made their base instincts and Satan their enemies. And whoever shows strength of character and works for good in the face of these realities here on Earth will receive the best rewards from Allah in both worlds:

I will not let the deeds of any doer among you go to waste, male or female-you are both the same in that respect. Those who have left their homes and were driven from their homes, and [who] suffered harm in My Way and fought and were killed, I will erase their bad actions and admit them into Gardens with rivers flowing under them, as a reward from Allah. The best of all rewards is with Allah. (Surah Al ‘Imran: 195)

He also reminds men and women that no one will be treated unjustly as regards the rewards they are to receive on Earth as well as in the Hereafter: “Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and will recompense them according to the best of what they did” (Surat an-Nahl: 97).

The Qur’an Addresses Men and Women in the Same Manner

Looking at the Qur’an in general, we see that men and women are addressed in the same manner. This is yet another indication that Allah is concerned only with a person’s true and heart-felt belief and not his or her age or gender. In this respect, the Qur’an addresses men and women together and reminds them that they have the same responsibilities. There are many such verses, among them: “Anyone, male or female, who does right actions and believes, will enter the Garden. They will not be wronged by so much as the tiniest speck”(Surat an-Nisa: 124).

Another verse in which Allah addresses men and women together is given below:

Whoever does an evil act will only be repaid with its equivalent. But whoever acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, such a person will enter the Garden, wherein they will be provided for without any reckoning. (Surah Ghafir: 40)

When revealing things about unbelievers, Allah also addresses them in the same manner. He reveals that unbelievers and hypocrites of both genders will be treated alike. For example:

The men and women of the hypocrites are as bad as one another. They command what is wrong and forbid what is right, and they keep their fists tightly closed. They have forgotten Allah, so He has forgotten them. The hypocrites are deviators. (Surat at-Tawba: 67)

Allah has promised the men and women of the hypocrites and unbelievers the Fire of Hell, remaining in it timelessly, forever. It will suffice them. Allah has cursed them. They will have an everlasting punishment. (Surat at-Tawba: 68)

This was so that Allah might punish hypocritical men and women as well as the associating men and women-those who think bad thoughts about Allah, and turn toward the men and women of the believers. Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Surat al-Ahzab: 73)

And so that He might punish hypocritical men and women as well as associating men and women-those who think bad thoughts about Allah. They will suffer an evil turn of fate. Allah is angry with them, has cursed them, and prepared Hell for them. What an evil destination! (Surat al-Fath: 6)

As these verses make clear, men and women are equal in their trial on Earth as well as in the reward they receive in the Hereafter.

The Value of Mothers

Islamic morality guarantees all people’s social and personal lives and shows them how to live the easiest, most content, and happiest life. This morality prescribes justice, tolerance, compassion, and helpfulness toward all people, regardless of gender, age, and economic status. Irrespective of whom they are dealing with, Muslims are required to always abide by this morality as best they can. Muslims adopt these superior moral characteristics because Allah tells them to do so. As a result, a person’s social status, gender, age, and other such characteristics are irrelevant to them.

Allah states the importance of treating women, especially mothers, well. Parents do their best to give their children a good education, a decent character, and teach them to treat all other people properly. Given that they make many sacrifices, financial or otherwise, for many years, the children are obligated to return their efforts and selfless support with respect and service. Allah reveals this responsibility:

We have instructed man to honor his parents. (Surat al-‘Ankabut: 8)

We have instructed man to be good to his parents. (Surat al-Ahqaf: 15)

Say: “Come, and I will recite to you what your Lord has made forbidden to you: that you do not associate anything with Him, that you be good to your parents, that you do not kill your children because of poverty-We will provide for you and them, that you do not approach indecency-outward or inward, and that you do not kill any person Allah has made inviolate-except with the right to do so. That is what He instructs you to do so that, hopefully, you will use your intellect.” (Surat al-An’am: 151)

The Qur’an also reveals that one must treat parents well and avoid arrogance and pride:

Worship Allah, and do not associate anything with Him. Be good to your parents and relatives, orphans and the very poor, neighbors who are related to you and neighbors who are not related to you, companions and travelers, and your slaves. Allah does not love anyone vain or boastful. (Surat an-Nisa’: 36)

Clearly, Allah advises people to always be tolerant, understanding, compassionate, and respectful toward their parents. He also reminds us of the difficulties that mothers suffer while giving birth and raising their children. For example:

We have instructed man concerning his parents. Bearing him caused his mother great debility, and the period of his weaning was two years: “Give thanks to Me and to your parents. I am your final destination.” (Surah Luqman: 14)

We have instructed man to be good to his parents. His mother bore him with difficulty and, with difficulty, gave birth to him; and his bearing and weaning take thirty months. Then when he achieves his full strength and reaches forty, he says: “My Lord, keep me thankful for the blessing You bestowed on me and on my parents, and keep me acting rightly, pleasing You. Make my descendants righteous. I have repented to You, and I am truly one of the Muslims.” (Surat al-Ahqaf: 15)

Every mother suffers for many months and displays great devotion in order to give birth. As Allah reveals, this is an agonizing process for her. After this period, she adopts a selfless devotion and begins to feed and nurture her child. Allah reminds people of this reality and points out that mothers are very special beings. In addition, He advises people not to forget their parents’ selfless devotion to them and to treat them equally well when they reach old age and become dependent:

Your Lord has decreed that you should worship none but Him, and that you should show kindness to your parents. Whether one or both of them reach old age with you, do not say “Ugh!” to them out of irritation, and do not be harsh with them; rather, speak to them with gentleness and generosity. Take them under your wing, out of mercy, with due humility and say: “O Lord, show mercy to them as they did in looking after me when I was small.” (Surat al-Isra’: 23-24)

As we all know, old age means the loss of physical strength, dynamism, health, and energy. Such people become dependent on other people’s care, protection, and help. Their mental faculties decrease, and they come face to face with memory loss and other problems. Muslims, as required by Allah, treat their elderly parents with compassion, tolerance, understanding, and care.

In the verses cited above, Allah reveals how Muslims should treat their elderly parents. As we see, He forbids Muslims to show even the slightest disrespect toward their parents and commands them to say nice things and treat them gently so that they will have no reason to become upset. As a result, Muslims are very understanding, considerate, and careful with their elderly parents. They do their best to make their parents comfortable and continue to love and respect them. Considering the difficulties and complaints associated with old age, Muslims try to provide for their parents’ needs before being asked to do so. Whatever the circumstances, they are always polite and giving.

Muslims not only provide for their parents’ spiritual and psychological needs, but also do everything to meet their material and financial needs. Allah reveals that parents have rights to their children’s financial assistance:

They will ask you what they should give away. Say: “Any wealth you give away should go to your parents and relatives, orphans and the very poor, and travelers.” Whatever good you do, Allah knows it. (Surat al-Baqara: 215)

 

Prophet Yusuf’s (as) exemplary treatment of his parents is a perfect example for all people. Following his appointment by the King as treasurer of Egypt, he hosted his parents in the most respectable manner and then expressed his gratitude and devotion to them by seating them on the throne. Allah reveals Yusuf’s (as) behavior:

 

Then when they entered into Yusuf’s presence, he drew his parents close to him and said: “Enter Egypt safe and sound, if Allah wills.” He raised his parents up onto the throne. The others fell prostrate in front of him. He said: “My father, truly this is now the interpretation of the dream I had. My Lord has made it all come true, and He was kind to me by letting me out of prison and brought you from the desert when Satan had caused dissent between me and my brothers. My Lord is kind to anyone He wills. He is indeed All-Knowing and All-Wise.” (Surah Yusuf: 99-100)

The Qur’an reveals that believers pray for their parents and for Allah’s forgiveness and mercy for them. From some of the verses, we gather that the Prophets made similar prayers. Allah reveals that Prophet Nuh (as) prayed for his parents: “O My Lord, forgive me and my parents and all who enter my house as believers, and all the men and women of the believers. But do not increase the wrongdoers except in ruin” (Surah Nuh: 28).

We understand from the Qur’an that Islamic morality places a great value on parents. Allah makes clear that such character traits are important for all Muslims when they are young as well as when they are old.

However, in certain cases believers are required to disobey their parents. For example:

But if they try to make you associate something with Me about which you have no knowledge, do not obey them. Keep company with them correctly and courteously in this world, but follow the way of him who turns to Me. Then you will return to Me, and I will inform you about the things you did. (Surah Luqman: 15)

Through this verse, Allah advises Muslims to disobey their parents only if the latter choose to rebel against Allah and encourage their children to do the same. But still, as required by Islam’s morality, one must not be disrespectful toward them and must honor their wishes and treat them well.

Women in Married Life

Relationships based on worldly values can degenerate into baseness, as often happens in marriage. When people’s love and respect is based on these values, they can lose these feelings quickly when circumstances change. This is almost inevitable when love, respect, and loyalty depend on one’s beauty, wealth, health, job, or status, for when these temporary and superficial characteristics disappear, so will the other person’s love. Someone who follows such criteria will find no reason to continue to love and honor his or her spouse when the basis for those values is lost.

Belief, fear and respect of Allah, and decency of character are what make love, respect, and loyalty endure. Someone who loves his or her spouse for their belief and character will, in married life, be respectful, loyal, and decent. Losing one’s youth, health, or beauty will not affect the love and consideration among spouses for each other, and neither will losing one’s wealth or social status. They will not cause trouble or discontent to the other person because of their firm belief and fear and respect of Allah, whatever the circumstances. Believers will always be gentle and compassionate, as well as fair and tolerant, for they will consider this to be a responsibility entrusted to them by Allah.

So close is the marital relationship that the Qur’an says of the spouses: “They are clothing for you, and you for them” (Surat al-Baqara: 187). In this verse, Allah reminds people that each spouse has equal responsibilities. The word “clothing” stands for the responsibility of guarding and protecting one another and also suggests that men and women have complementary qualities.

Another verse states the importance of love and compassion in marriage: “Among His Signs is that He created spouses for you of your own kind, so that you might find tranquillity in them. And He has placed affection and compassion between you. There are certainly Signs in that for people who reflect” (Surat ar-Rum: 21). Believers consider their spouses to be gifts that Allah has given into their care, and therefore value one another greatly. They show affection and compassion when their spouse makes a mistake or falls short in some way, and know that behaving according to the Qur’an will help them overcome all difficulties and solve their problems. As a result, marriage helps both spouses find contentment and peace.

With the phrase “you have been intimate with one another” (Surat an-Nisa’: 21), Allah proclaims the closeness and intimacy of married life. The secret of this closeness, intimacy, and valuing of each other is their intention to create an everlasting togetherness that will extend into the Hereafter. True loyalty and love requires this attitude. Since their love is neither selfish nor temporary, but intended to be everlasting, they are completely loyal, close, honest, and intimate with one another.

As we have seen, the Qur’an’s morality forms the basis for a marital relationship based on togetherness, one in which both parties fear and respect Allah and follow His morality. In such a relationship, each person’s loyalty, faithfulness, love, sincerity, tolerance, and modesty complement and support the other person. Such a marriage is stable and long-lasting. The marriages of people without these qualities, on the other hand, are short-lived.

For these reasons, Islam considers marriage to be a comfort for women, for in it she experiences love, respect, loyalty, and faithfulness in the best possible way. She is always respected, valued, and honored. The absence of any pride, superiority complex, and lies enables her to find peace and contentment.

Our Prophet (saas) became a great example for all Muslims in this respect. Allah refers to this reality in the following verse: “You have an excellent model in the Messenger of Allah, for all who put their hope in Allah and the Last Day and remember Allah much” (Surat al-Ahzab: 21). He frequently stated the importance and value of Muslim women, as in this hadith: “The whole world is a provision, and the best object of benefit of the world is the pious woman.”16

In another hadith, he said: “The most perfect believer in faith is the one who is the best of them in good conduct. The best of you is the one among you who treats his wife the best.”17

His impeccable behavior is a role model for all Muslims. In one hadith, he points out the importance of treating married women in the nicest way:

“The best of you is the one who is the best to his wives, and I am the best of you toward my wives.”18

He reminded everyone in a hadith of the importance of valuing women: “Act kindly toward women.”19

Our Prophet (saas), who is a role model for all believers, always treated his wives gently, nicely, and with compassion. Aisha said: “I have never seen a man who was more compassionate to his family members than Muhammad (saas).”20

Being Protective of Women

By proclaiming “We send down in the Qur’an that which is a healing and a mercy to the believers,” (Surat al-Isra’: 82) Allah states that Islamic morality will always direct people toward the good and that the Qur’an’s verses are a mercy for them. These verses, revealed to create contentment and justice among people, guarantee the rights of women in both their social and family lives. And, the verse “We bring you the truth and the best of explanations” (Surat al-Furqan: 33) makes clear the fact that the Qur’an contains all of the knowledge needed to find the value, love, and respect that they deserve in every aspect of their lives.

This is a great mercy, comfort, and gift from Allah for women as well. When people behave according to the Qur’an’s morals, all disputes over the role and place of women in society, as well as the controversy surrounding them in unbelieving societies, will certainly come to an end.

We will now explore some of the verses that guard women’s social rights and reveal their importance and value in Islam’s moral system.

Divorcing Women with Their Consent

The believers’ fear and respect of Allah, as well as their belief, cause them to obey their conscience and the Qur’an’s values at every moment. But for unbelievers, their base instincts and Satan are their guiding influences. Thus, they seek to satisfy their self-interest and their ego instead of acting fairly and nicely. This scenario is often seen when relationships end, such as a marriage based upon financial self-interest.

For these people, divorce means the end of all bonds based on mutual interest, for when these interests no longer exist, there is no longer any reason for them to value or respect the other party. As a result, they see no reason to do anything good for that person, and so move to protect their own interests regardless of the other person’s situation.

Believers display a totally different type of behavior in such circumstances, for their only goal in life is to win Allah’s good pleasure. Fully aware that following the whims of their self-interest or ego displeases Him, they adhere to the Qur’an’s morality and their conscience. Therefore, even in the case of divorce, they treat each other well and with justice.

Allah commands men to divorce their wives in the best possible way: “When you divorce women and they are near the end of their waiting period, then either retain them with correctness and courtesy or release them with correctness and courtesy” (Surat al-Baqara: 231). Pursuing only Allah’s good pleasure, they treat their ex-wives with tolerance, compassion, politeness, respect, and thoughtfulness, thereby continuing their former loving and respectful manner toward each other. Allah reveals the male believers’ correct behavior in such circumstances:

O you who believe! When you marry believing women and then divorce them before you have touched them, there is no waiting period for you to calculate for them, so give them a gift and let them go with kindness. (Surat al-Ahzab: 49)

Guaranteeing Divorced Women’s Financial Security

Allah reveals that a sincere Muslim man must guarantee his ex-wife’s financial security in order to safeguard her continued financial well-being:

Divorced women should receive maintenance given with correctness and courtesy: a duty for all who guard against evil. (Surat al-Baqara: 241)

When determining this amount, a Muslim man must act conscientiously and consider his ex-wife’s social standing and needs. The Qur’an states that:

… Provide for them-He who is wealthy according to his means, and he who is less well off according to his means-a provision to be given with correctness and courtesy: a duty for all good-doers. (Surat al-Baqara: 236)

He who has plenty should spend out of his plenty (to those women he divorces), but he whose provision is restricted should spend from what Allah has given him. Allah does not demand from anyone more than He has given it. Allah will appoint, after difficulty, ease. (Surat at-Talaq: 7)

In other words, Allah holds everyone, without exception, responsible according to their financial means and requires them to pay a suitable maintenance. Some unbelievers consider it a waste of money to pay alimony to their ex-wives, because they neither believe in the Hereafter nor seek Allah’s good pleasure. Since they only wish to safeguard their self-interest, they consider pointless to act selflessly toward someone from whom they are estranged and thus can expect no benefit. For this reason, they seek to avoid this responsibility, at least partially or completely. On the other hand, male believers, as mentioned above, continue to treat their ex-wives well and do what they can to meet their financial needs.

Believers understand that it is not necessarily what they do, but rather what their true intention is, that will win them His good pleasure. This truth is explained in the following words: “Their flesh and blood does not reach Allah, but your heedfulness does reach Him” (Surat al-Hajj: 37). For this reason, a believing man willingly fulfills his responsibilities toward his ex-wife in this respect. However, if she does not wish to receive her due and if she wishes to forego this right, her former husband cannot be held responsible: “Give women their dowry as an outright gift. But if they are happy to give you some of it, make use of it with pleasure and goodwill”(Surat an-Nisa’: 4).

Ex-Wives Retain Their Property

The Qur’an also protects a woman’s interests by stating that she retains what her former husband gave her while they were married: “If you desire to exchange one wife for another and have given your original wife a large amount, do not take any of it. Would you take it by means of slander and outright crime? How could you take it when you have been intimate with one another, and they have made a binding contract with you?” (Surat an-Nisa’: 20-21).

Allah reminds people that believing men must respect the terms of their marriage agreement. One of these terms is that regardless of the amount of property or money that a woman receives from her husband during their marriage, he has no right to take it back after he divorces her. Believing men know this truth, and so do their best to obey this command.

It is not lawful for you to keep anything you have given them, unless a couple fears that they will not remain within Allah’s limits [that He established for humanity]. If you fear that they will not remain within these limits, there is nothing wrong in the wife ransoming herself with some of what she received. These are Allah’s limits [that He established for humanity], so do not overstep them. Those who overstep these limits are wrongdoers. (Surat al-Baqara: 229)

As seen, Islamic morality has a very high opinion of women and seeks to prevent them from suffering any difficulties or hardships. Thus, believing men safeguard the rights of women and are most considerate toward them.

Housing Divorced Women

When it comes to housing an ex-wife, Allah proclaims: “Let them live where you live, according to your means. Do not put pressure on them, so as to harass them. If they are pregnant, maintain them until they give birth. If they are suckling for you, give them their wages and consult together with correctness and courtesy. But if you make things difficult for one another, another woman should do the suckling for you” (Surat at-Talaq: 6). Believing men are required to meet their ex-wives’ every need, both material and otherwise, so that they will not fall upon hard times. First, the ex-wife must be housed until a suitable home can be arranged for her. If she is pregnant, her former husband must cover all of the costs associated with her health and care until she gives birth. What truly matters here is that believing men act in a thoughtful and understanding manner, whatever the circumstances may be, and ensure that the ex-wife’s financial and other needs be met so that she will not experience any hardship. All of these matters must be resolved as prescribed in the Qur’an.

Do Not Inherit Women by Force

Allah has made many recommendations in order to safeguard women’s social rights. For example, He reminds believers:

O you who believe! There is no permission for you to inherit women by force. Nor may you treat them harshly, so that you can make off with part of what you have given them, unless they commit an act of flagrant indecency. Live together with them correctly and courteously. (Surat an-Nisa’: 19)

 

Safeguarding the Rights of Orphaned Girls

The verse below draws our attention toward the correct treatment of women:

They will consult you concerning women. Say: “Allah advises about them; and also what is recited to you in the Book about orphan girls to whom you do not give the inheritance they are owed, while at the same time desiring to marry them; and also about young children who are denied their rights: that you should act justly with respect to orphans.” Whatever good you do, Allah knows it. (Surat an-Nisa’: 127)

Some unbelievers seek to dispossess those weak and vulnerable people who have no guardian to look after their best interests. One group of such people consists of female orphans who, because of their wealth, are often sought out by greedy men. Allah warns believers about these evil-minded people, reveals their character traits, and commands them to be righteous.

Believers know that Allah is All-Seeing and will call them to account for their actions in the Hereafter. They are aware of the loss awaiting those who cheat and defraud people here or are unjust or merciless to them. Given this reality, they shun all such evil, knowing that a little avarice in this life could lead to eternal suffering in the Hereafter. Therefore, they safeguard the orphan’s interests and do what they can to keep all evil-minded people away from them. Likewise, they strictly honor the rights of any orphan they seek to marry and have no secret plan to acquire her wealth for themselves.

 

 

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