24 SEPTEMBER 1988, Page 27

Honouring God

Sir: With reference to William Oddie's The Honour of God' (17 September) in which he comments on The Last Tempta- don of Christ as purveyed on the screen by Scorsese.

Mr Oddie makes the profound and valuable remark that Moslems take their religion seriously enough that any insult to that religion would be a risky business.

As a practising Sunni Moslem myself, I take it as an insult and a blasphemy that Jesus Christ should be portrayed as 'weak, inconsistent, mendacious and neurotic' for the simple (and possibly not well enough known) reason that the person of Jesus Christ is accorded great respect and rever- ence in the Moslem religion.

I do share Mr Oddie's regrets that Christian churchmen are not trenchant enough in the defence of the founder of their faith. A film or play denigrating Muhammad would have the entire Moslem world, clergy and laity, enraged.

Omar Ali-Shah

Springwood House, Godalming, Surrey