Sir - As one of the two petitioners at a recent city council meeting, speaking on behalf of the central mosque's possible use of its minaret for broadcast calls to prayer, I would like to make one correction to the front page article (November 30) about this proposal.

The Imam of the central mosque and I made it clear in our submission to the council that we were only proposing the broadcast call on a once-weekly basis, before and during the 1.30 pm Friday Prayers.

I would also like to reassure the writers of two letters on this subject published in The Oxford Times on December 14, both of which expressed concern about the intrusiveness of the broadcast proposal.

To Dr Allan Chapman and Mrs Rachel Chapman who believe that the Muslim call to prayer is an "explicit theological statement", amounting to "public preaching", I would suggest that the two minutes of the repeated calling of the phrase 'God is Great' is neither.

There is no mention of the Prophet's "status" nor of anything approaching the equivalent of the Lord's Prayer. As for 'preaching', I would ask whether for this to happen it would have to be spoken in a language understood by the non-Muslim members of the public. Throughout the world the broadcast is chanted in Arabic.

To S. Houston's concern about the proposed call to prayer being "too intrusive for our predominantly Christian community", I would say two things. Firstly, I think that it is arguable that the central mosque area of the city has a multi-faith population rather than a predominantly Christian one. And, secondly, I believe that the cities in the UK with church bells ringing out along with Muslim calls to prayer are pointing the way to the mature society still to come.

David Partridge (Canon), Oxford