Muslims can pray up to five times a day (“HR allows smoking breaks so why not time off for prayer?”, News, 24 July). These prayer times are determined by the season and geographical location. My experience of office work in several Muslim countries has been that the noon prayers have coincided with the lunch break, for example.

In the more westernised countries of North Africa, the Near East and in Turkey, the noon-time prayer is seldom observed by white-collar employees.