The end of Ramadan

	The festival of Id is one of the most important of the Muslim calendar

Early one morning I was strolling through the back streets near the central railway station when I heard a familiar but most unexpected sound. I quickened my step and came to a square which contained some ancient ruins and a group of Bangladeshi Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan.

Now I'm all for everyone having freedom of religion and no doubt the end of the month of fasting is something to celebrate, but I did think they had a bit of a cheek, to be yelling out their declaration of faith in the capital city of Christendom when Christians aren't even allowed to set foot in Mecca or to practise their faith anywhere in Saudi Arabia. Philippino servants caught doing so end up in prison and a year or so back one man was actually under sentence of death for practising his Christian faith a little too openly.

The trouble is that apart from protesting about it - as I am doing here - I don't know what we can actually do about the situation. If we banned Muslims from practising their faith in Christian countries, we would just be sinking to the same level of intolerance and bigotry as they display.

So let me appeal to my Muslim friends: you claim to be a tolerant faith - why not show toleration instead of just talking about it?