Firms must take sharia law into account when drawing up HR policies, a leading law firm has warned. Employers who allow smokers to have cigarette breaks can hardly complain about Muslim employees slipping out several times a day for prayers, Norton Rose associate Adrian Hoggarth told delegates at a seminar in London this month on the subject.

“The Muslim Council of Britain says it takes 10-12 minutes for a devotee to go through their prayers (pictured, right), which is about the time it takes for a smoker to get through a large cigarette or small cigar,” Hoggarth said. But he added that providing a prayer room was not a requirement and providing one purely for Muslims might be discriminatory to other faiths.