<The literacy rate is 58% in most of the middle east. Most of those are men. For women the rate drops to about 15%.

Literacy comprehension is probably a lot lower, but...

Why is it so low?

Masonry law?

Only the religious leaders are to be considered learned (Sufi, according to the cashier at my local Dairy Mart -- where I buy the Sunday paper). Job security?

A spoon-fed religion. Even here, in the good ol’ U.S. of A., with such well-respected religions as Roman Catholic, Judaism, and Mormon -- to name very, very few -- many merely repeat what is spouted to them from the pulpit, never bothering to crack the seal on their own religious books. There are a lot of exceptions, because a lot of us can actually read, but the when reading is a genuine chore -- why bother? The Word of God will be recited at service anyway.

Path of least resistance = showing up, bowing your head, and agreeing with what the learned one has passed along to you.

How many of these leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been drummed out of communities as being fanatical? How many followers did each carry with him? Just another example of the West usurping the Islamic religion.

It would seem reasonable to assume (there’s that dangerous word again) that religious leaders who do fear the education of the masses do so because they will be found out to be liars. That they will face a new youth who had actually read the Koran and understand it -- children of a war-torn people who had been lied to all their lives, and are now dead, or crippled, because of it.

And if one cannot begin to fathom the written Koran, what are the odds another book -- any book at all -- might ever be picked up and read as comparative literature?

An educated house is a tough house to play to,
Dan