This year’s Nobel Prize for Peace has gone to Ms Shirin Ebadi, a human rights activist lawyer of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the first time a Nobel Prize has gone to a Muslim woman in its history. Without failure, the Islamic Government in Iran and fanatic Mullahs around the Muslim world have been livid by her winning the Nobel Prize and most predictably have they quickly discovered a “Zionist-American-Western conspiracy-theory” against Islam behind it. However, there has largely been a deluge of joy and pride flowing all over the Muslim world. Without disputing the deservedness of Ms Ebadi, the Muslim world should take time to ponder whether handing the Nobel Prize to Ms Ebadi is a reason to be delighted or ashamed of. Before going into this analysis, let us have a look into Ms Ebadi background and why she was awarded the Nobel.

Ms Ebadi, born in 1947, studied law at Tehran University during the secular ruling days of the late Shah of Iran and barely out of her University was she made the first woman Judge in Iran at a very early age in 1975 - naturally the glimpse of her outstanding brilliance is in evidence. However, once the Shah’s secular Government was overthrown by the violent and bloody Islamic Revolution lead by the late Ayatullah Khomeini, Ms Ebadi was quickly removed from her position of Judge on the basis of the glaringly discriminatory (gender-wise) Islamic ruling, “the Islamic requirement for a judge is that the person have reached puberty, know Koranic laws, be just, not have amnesia, not be a bastard and not be of a female sex.” Since then she was allowed to work only a legal aid, not even as an attorney. Then on, Ms Ebadi has been fighting for changing the Islamic laws for women and children in Iran ruled by the hard-core and repressive Islamic regime. She has also been fighting for rights of the refugees and democratic reform inside Iran. For sure, Ms Ebadi has been a courageous and loud voice for the rights of suppressed women-folk in Iran and the Islamic world at large. And bestowing the Nobel Peace Prize on her must have been a deserving recognition for her fearless fight in seeking to restore the naturally-deserved rights of women badly trampled by ruling Islamist clerics in Iran and in many parts of the Islamic world. 

It is now time to have a look into how much should we rejoice this well-deserved winning of Nobel Prize by Ms Ebadi. As a humble world citizen and being a fellow Muslim in particular, I feel Muslims around the world have a reason to be ashamed instead of being delighted and proud by Ms Ebadi’s winning the Nobel Prize.

Today we live in a world where young women from one corner of the globe, say from Australia, are making long journey to another corner, say to Africa and devoting their lives to the welfare of the poor, illiterate and neglected people in that far continent. We live in a world today, where Mother Teresa made a journey from Albania in Europe all the way to Calcutta of India some 50 years ago and devoted her entire life to the welfare of the hapless poor, abandoned and sick people there. Today her charity organization, named Missionaries of Charity, have spread to some 133 countries around the world and thousands of sisters (nuns) have now joined her mission to devote their lives working in charity missions, schools and hospitals caring for the poor, sick and the oppressed.

Today we live in a world, where women from Europe, Australia, America and Canada etc. are showing enormous courage by taking up jobs in various welfare organizations like Human Rights Watch, Red-cross, CARE and so no. They are leaving the comfort of cozy lives in affluent countries including the care and love of their near and dear ones and traveling to undertake a difficult and risky a life in distant parts of impoverished Africa and Asia where they are not only working for the welfare and improvement of the lot of the poor people but also fighting for the rights of neglected and oppressed. And here in the Muslim world, we have even snatched away the very fundamental rights of our womenfolk; forget about Muslim women traveling to distant parts of the globe to work and speak for the welfare and rights of another hapless and oppressed people there. Doesn’t this appalling condition of the Muslim women around the world constitute a case, which the modern 21^st-century world and the Muslim world in particular should be desperately ashamed of? Shouldn’t it be a case that many women from a wealthy and resourceful nation like Iran could join hands in fighting for the rights of the oppressed people in Africa instead of begging for their own fundamental human rights in their own country?

In today’s world we even seek to give a chance (right to live) to a serial killer or rapist while Muslim women get cruelly killed for hardly-criminal acts like adultery by a barbaric and medieval custom called stoning-to-death. In Islamic Iran, a woman has to die a cruel death by stoning in public for killing a man to save herself from being raped. There should not be any dispute to the fact that Ms Ebadi is fighting a daring fight for a noble cause but it should be considered a silly cause to fight for in today’s world, given the standard of human values and rights which have been pledged in UN’s charter for universal human rights and which has been established in many parts of the civilized world.

Ms Ebadi won her Nobel Prize plainly for a silly cause by today’s standard - a cause that should have no place in this 21^st-century modern world. Today when we think about bestowing the Nobel Peace Prize, we should be thinking of those selfless and courageous women who have left their comfortable life in Australia, Europe or North America and dedicated themselves to improving the life, education and rights of less-fortunate and oppressed people in Africa, Asia or South America. For a candidate to bestow the Nobel Peace Prize, today we should be considering a Sylvia Mortoza who left her cozy life in UK for a life of great discomfort in Bangladesh where she has worked with the less-fortunate people trying to educate them, trying to make them aware of their fundamental rights and trying to highlight their plights to the local Government and to the world at large. Naturally the question arises: did the right person get the Nobel this time? Ms Ebadi deserved it or not, as a fellow Muslim I feel desperately frustrated today because she has to bet her life for a fight which should not have existed in today’s world of excellence in science and technology, democracy, human rights and values. Today, I am disappointed and angry because the very basic rights of millions of women are cruelly being trampled based on the 7th-century religious verdicts and Ms Ebadi has to wage a daring fight against that, a fight that should have no place in this modern world. But I am happy because of a sense of optimism that recognition of Ms Ebadi’s fight against a very unfortunate evil of today’s world which will enkindle the fire of desperate hope and fight amongst those millions of unfortunate and repressed Muslim women and the world citizenry at large leading to the defeat of the obscurantist religious forces and to the establishment of women's basic human rights.

I salute Ms Ebadi for her enormous courage and I thank the Novel Committee for recognizing that. And today, I eagerly wait for the very day to arrive when the women-folk of the Muslim world will enjoy all the human rights of the free world and I wish Ms Ebadi’s winning the Nobel Prize would expedite the arrival of that auspicious day.