A reader takes me to task for writing that Al Qaeda’s ‘demands’ are ‘for a world put back a thousand years’ noting that “if Al Qaeda’s [demands were for a] world…put back 1,000 years, it would be progress.” The Islamic sages of the early Middle Ages “tried to learn from whatever sources of knowledge were considered valid at the time. Al Qaeda simply do not want to know… They may refer constantly to the former glory of their civilization, but they actually show no sign of wanting to return to it. Listen closely, that’s not… the Koran you hear in the background: it’s the banjo from Deliverance.”