Tolerance on television

A POPULAR Saudi holiday TV sitcom has drawn the ire of conservative clerics over an episode portraying Arab Christians in a positive light.

Tash Ma Tash has aired during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan for 17 years.

A two-part episode of the sitcom, called Uncle Boutros, showed the two main Saudi characters being advised by their dying father to visit the brother of their dead Lebanese mother.

After a tearful reunion, the pair discover their mother's relatives were Christians and Uncle Boutros was a priest. Despite initial shock, the brothers slowly come to respect their uncle's Christianity and his charitable deeds towards a Lebanese Muslim neighbour.

But some Saudi clerics were not impressed.

"A Muslim is allowed to praise only the one true religion, Islam," said Eissa al-Ghaith, a judge at the Justice Ministry, in remarks reported in a Sunday newspaper.