I find it quite interesting that St. Columba appeared in Scotland at more or less the same time as Muhammad arrived in Arabia. It's always nice to see a little synchronicity in history, a coming together that somewhat belies the rather chequered relationship between the two religions ever since. And I like to think that amidst the secularism that largely dominates our world of late, the religions are finding it easier to come together again in a more pragmatic way than mere historical synchronicity.

"Phew what a scorcher!" Our brief annual glimpse of the sun will surely interrupt our regular diet of Shock/Horror newspaper headlines. But at least we can now link the sun with drought and skin cancer, to retain a certain consistency. For as every tabloid editor knows, good news is no news, and the best news of all is a disaster.

We all know what makes headlines, war and starvation, plane crashes, traffic chaos, deaths and threatening diseases, plus a bit of sexual scandal for some self-righteous intolerance, and for something less frivolous, a bit of politics. So one event this week certainly won't be splashed in large type across the front pages, it being not only good news but also fourteen hundred years old. The anniversary of the death of St. Columba hardly counts as hard news, no matter what his importance to Scottish history.

Of even less local news interest, five years after Columba landed on Iona Muhammad was born in Makkah. When Columba died Muhammad was twenty-seven. Both men had a transforming effect on the world around them, but few would imagine them as having much in common.

Of course, Christianity is rarely mentioned in the headlines nowadays except in defining which side shot who, or in scandals involving wayward clergy, but the picture the news paints of Islam is even more extreme, consistently representing it as synonymous with fanaticism, terrorism, oppression and brutality. How can this be, when one of the central tenets of Islam is Tolerance, with tolerance of other religions specifically enshrined in the Qur'an. Muslims are even forbidden to argue with Christians "except in the gentlest of manners".

Qur'an says that Christians are the closest to muslims because of their modesty, love of learning, and disdain for worldly temptations, an approach to life shared by Columba and Muhammad, that can be seen in the lives of most of their followers today.

If our religions are to help transform our society into a more loving and caring community, we must find a way to ensure that we define them by the example of their founders, not the extremist fringe that's the only face of religion you will find making headlines in your daily news.