The five-year sentence of a Muslim from Southwick, Mostafizur Tip Rahman, who cut off his mother's head in a religious rage, was excessively lenient, considering that in most Muslim countries such a barbarity would incur the capital penalty.

The report (Argus, April 6) states that Rahman believed himself to be "the Islamic prophet Esa".

For the record, Esa or Isa is the Muslim name for the prophet known to the Jews as Yeshua and among the Christians by the Latinised name Jesus.

It only adds to the horror of the story that a man believing himself to be Jesus (upon whom be peace) should believe himself called upon to kill his mother.

The defence stated Rahman was insane at the time of the crime, whereas earlier in his life, before he became religious, he had been a normal person who "enjoyed clubbing, smoking, drinking and gambling".

Sanity is culturally relative. The culture of personal hedonism which is currently regarded as sane in the West is elsewhere regarded as spiritual and social destruction.

Whereas, sadly, murdering members of one's own family who are considered to have transgressed God's law and to have brought shame on to their kin is still too often regarded among some Islamic cultures as righteousness.

-Dr Farouk Badawi, St James's Street, Brighton