Hot literacy in cold societies: A comparative study of the sacred value of writing.

Challenges the associations between alphabetic literacy and the growth of knowledge and between restricted literacy and traditional societies by presenting material from medieval Europe, in which the milieu of restricted literacy is creative, and from Muslim Africa, in which widespread literacy does not lead to criticism or the revision of basic religious tenets. Reasons for the vitality of Islamic reform in West Africa; Western education; Scriptural literacy.