Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW Vol. 5 Num 1106 Wed. July 11, 2007       Letters to Editor William Carey Engineer Shafi Ahmed, London, UK The write-up on Reverend William Carey by Rubab Abdullah (4 July) was quite justified and perhaps long overdue. Carey learnt various Indian Languages at the time and obviously his purpose was not merely scholarly. First, he was a Christian missionary and his prime duty was to preach the gospel to the natives. And that is why the native languages and their development to enable translation of the Bible for the understanding of the natives were so essential. This does not however demean his scholarly contribution because all languages, literature and scholarly pursuits initially were based on religious scriptures. Al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo was established more than a thousand years ago for this reason and later Oxford University in England was established for turning out priests for the Christian religion. As women could not be ordained as priests, they were not allowed into the universities for higher education. And that is how the women were educationally discriminated, the effect of which is still felt today in senior positions and other areas in society.