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I've had two fatwas issued against me by despot mullahs opposed to education - and important to know that the great majority of Imams and Islamic religious leaders support education for all children.

Greg Mortenson

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Greg Mortenson
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 27
Humanitarian
Mountaineer
Nurse
Philanthropist
Writer
Rochester
Minnesota
Leader
Imams
Education
Mullahs
Support
Despot
Religious
Issued
Children
Opposed
Important
Islamic
Great
Leaders
Majority

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And they did it with something that is basicly worthless in our society - pennies. But overseas, pennies can move mountains
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I think Americans yearn for other alternatives to peace, than the path our government has currently taken, and perhaps why there is great interest in this book, and the message to fight poverty and ignorance with education.
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Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' Sign in Skardu
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Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned in my life...We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We're the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.
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When ordinary human beings perform extraordinary acts of generosity, endurance or compassion, we are all made richer by their example. Like the rivers that flow out of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, the inspiration they generate washes down to the rest of us. It waters everyone's fields.
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In America we now live more in fear than in hope, and eventually that will lead to ignorance and hatred. We need to have optimism that the world can be a better place, and we can leave a legacy for our children. Being bilingual, travel and studying geography, culture and religions can help.
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In tribal society, the most important thing to do when civilians are killed in a skirmish is to acknowledge the deaths, and provide compensation. When tribal clans fight, the victor is required to take care of the vanquished widows and orphans, which puts a limitation on bloodshed, and tempers warring groups to try and negotiate a compromise.
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The Koran and Islam is about submission, justice and compassion. All people of the book - which means the Torah, Koran and Bible are accorded equal respect under Islam.
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My work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.
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I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.
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But what I really believe is education is a key to pretty much everything - prosperity, economics, peace, stability.
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You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with those people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.
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In times of war, you often hear leaders—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.
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The people of Pakistan are some of the most hospitable, kinds and generous people I have met anywhere, in the over 70 countries I have visited in my lifetime.
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There is still a desperate need for investment and promotion of education in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Official figures put Pakistan literacy rate over 45%, but in many rural areas we work it is about 10-15%, and for girls even lower.
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My father ended up starting the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My mother started a school.
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The tune was too ingrained for Mortenson to consider the novelty of this moment- an American, lost in Pakistan, singing a German hymn in Swahili.
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the people who live in the last places - the people who are most neglected and least valued by the larger world - often represent the best of who we are and the finest standard of what we are meant to become. This is the power that last places hold over me, and why I have found it impossible to resist their pull.
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