Here’s Malala Yousafzai’s stiff-arm to the Taliban.
The 16-year-old Pakistani education activist — who survived an assassination attempt by terrorists last year — bared henna-painted hands in her new memoir “I Am Malala” (Little, Brown and Company).
But instead of daubing traditional floral patterns, Malala showed off her science homework — a slap in the face to the Taliban, which barred girls from receiving an education and bombed schools in her hometown.
“When we decorated our hands with henna for holidays and weddings, we drew calculus and chemical formulae instead of flowers and butterflies,” Malala wrote.
“It was school that kept me going in those dark days . . . We hid our school bags and our books in our shawls.”
Since she was 11 years old, Malala has boldly stood up for her right to an education.
Her father, Ziauddin, ran a girls’ school in the Swat Valley, a remote area in Northwest Pakistan that was taken over by militants in 2009. The Taliban worked to enforce strict Islamic law, under which they outlawed music and TV and forbade women to go shopping.
It also barred females from school, but that didn’t stop Malala from secretly studying.
Malala became a target for terrorists after she started an anonymous blog, “Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl,” for the BBC that chronicled her life under Taliban rule.
In October 2012, militants discovered her identity and shot her in the head while she was riding home on a school bus.
“Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, or I will shoot you all,” the militant asked the bus full of students, before shooting Malala point-blank.
Her family was told to prepare for the worst, but Malala miraculously survived after two surgeries at a Birmingham, England, hospital.
Malala has become a global icon and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this month. Had she won, she would have been the youngest winner in history.
She lives in Birmingham with her family, but said she someday wants to return to Pakistan to go into politics — despite the threat on her life.
“If we found her again, then we would definitely try to kill her,” a Taliban spokesman told The Associated Press earlier this month. “We will feel proud upon her death.”