Ismaili women throughout the world have been encouraged to acquire more education than their peers. Consequently, Ismaili women are, today, relatively well educated. The benefits of this academic policy have been extensive

People come together around competence, around ability, around knowledge. They don’t like mediocrity.

The so-called Arab Spring has brought special attention to this challenge - illustrating that it is easier to rally people in opposition to a particular government than to forge agreement about new governing processes