“And nothing short of an Islamic reformation will solve it.” (The problem of Islamic terrorism.)

The Reformation was an age of witch-burning, fanaticism, and theological invention. One could make a case that Islam is now in the midst of its Reformation. Later, the Enlightenment was an age increasingly tolerant of religious dissent, and permissive of private religious skepticism.

Simon is educated enough to know better. He meant to write that “Nothing short of an Islamic Enlightenment will solve it.”

In Europe, Protestantism favored mass literacy, so that all might read and know the Book. In the Islamic world, mass literacy, when it comes, may or may not be followed by better education and an Enlightenment.