When contacted by the News, the store's assistant manager, who refused to give her name, said: "It is true that Muslims can't sell cigarettes - I used to be Jehovah's Witness and I wouldn't on religious grounds either." She said the customer should have realised the shop assistant was a Muslim, and would not sell her tobacco, because she was "sitting there in her full robes" ...

Asim Mumtaz, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Cambridge, said: "I don't think there is any basis for refusing to sell cigarettes. Islam, like most religions, is against anything that injures health or the body, but there is no ban on cigarettes or on smoking. The holy Koran is quite specific about intoxicants, alcohol and other drugs which cause a person to lose control are forbidden, but cigarettes are not forbidden so I am surprised by this."