Archbishop of Canterbury gave ‘interfaith’ award to Muslim scholar who praised Bin Laden
The decision to present an interfaith award to Pakistani Muslim scholar Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi has triggered a political and religious controversy after earlier comments attributed to him about Osama Bin Laden came to light.
The award was presented at Lambeth Palace on September 11, the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. The timing added another layer of sensitivity to an already contentious decision, although the Church of England subsequently withdrew the award after reviewing historical comments attributed to Ashrafi.
The Church of England said the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation had originally been presented because of Ashrafi’s work supporting religious minorities in Pakistan, particularly the Christian community.
In its subsequent statement, Lambeth Palace said that the award recognised his “longstanding support for religious minorities in Pakistan” and that this work was valued by Christians in Pakistan, including members of the Anglican Church.
The Church then acknowledged that previous comments had subsequently come to light.
It said those comments had led Lambeth Palace to reconsider the award and confirmed that it had been withdrawn. The Palace said Ashrafi had been contacted about the decision and that it remained committed to interfaith dialogue and religious harmony.
The reversal has placed the Church of England under scrutiny over the process used to assess recipients of high-profile awards.
The controversy is particularly sensitive because the comments attributed to Ashrafi concern Bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda who was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.
Bin Laden was the principal figure behind al-Qaeda and was associated with the September 11 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed. The attacks transformed international security policy and resulted in the US-led war in Afghanistan.
For many victims, survivors and families, references to Bin Laden remain inseparable from the mass-casualty attacks he helped orchestrate.
According to reporting cited in the original controversy, Ashrafi was associated with a 2007 decision by the Pakistan Ulema Council to confer the title “Sword of God” on Bin Laden. Reuters reported at the time that Ashrafi described Bin Laden as fighting for Islam against Russia, America and Britain and supported the use of the Islamic honorific “Saifullah”. Those historical remarks have now become central to the dispute over the award.
The significance of those comments is contested in the sense that they belong to an earlier period of Ashrafi’s public life, while the Church’s award was intended to recognise his more recent work on interfaith relations.
That distinction was reflected in Lambeth Palace’s explanation.
The Church did not say that interfaith engagement itself was inappropriate. Instead, it said that the newly surfaced historical comments changed its assessment of whether the award should stand.
That decision has prompted questions about due diligence.
Critics argue that the relevant comments were sufficiently serious and publicly documented that they should have been identified before the award was presented.
Supporters of interfaith engagement, meanwhile, could argue that dialogue requires religious leaders to engage with people whose past views or political positions may be controversial, particularly when those individuals have subsequently worked to protect minority communities.
The central issue is therefore not simply whether a Muslim scholar should be invited to Lambeth Palace.
It is whether a public award for reconciliation can remain credible when the recipient has previously been associated with statements praising a figure responsible for terrorist attacks.
That question has become particularly prominent because of the nature of the award itself.
The Hubert Walter Award is explicitly connected with reconciliation and interfaith cooperation. An award carrying that description inevitably places greater emphasis on the recipient’s public record concerning relations between religious communities.
The controversy also comes at a time when religious leaders across Britain are facing difficult questions about extremism, integration and community relations.
The Church of England has repeatedly emphasised the importance of cooperation between different faith communities.
In May 2026, Archbishop Sarah Mullally used a speech in the House of Lords to stress the importance of integration amid what she described as rising hostility, hate crime and intimidation. The Church has also continued to hold events bringing together people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Those efforts form an important part of the wider context.
Interfaith work is intended to create communication between communities that might otherwise become isolated from one another. In principle, that can involve meeting people with whom there are profound disagreements.
But the Ashrafi controversy demonstrates the reputational risks involved.
If a recipient’s past statements are not identified before an award is presented, the intended message of reconciliation can be overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the individual.
That appears to be what happened here.
The initial presentation generated photographs and public praise, while the subsequent withdrawal turned the same event into a dispute about institutional judgment.
The timing was particularly striking.
The award was presented on September 11, a date that has enormous significance in international discussions about terrorism. Even if the date was selected for reasons unrelated to the anniversary, the coincidence made the decision more likely to attract scrutiny.
For survivors and relatives of victims of terrorism, the symbolism of September 11 is especially powerful.
Travis Frain, a survivor of the 2017 Westminster Bridge attack, criticised the award before it was withdrawn. He argued that presenting it on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks compounded what he regarded as a serious error by the Church.
Other critics also questioned Ashrafi’s reported views on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and comments about suicide attacks in Afghanistan.
These issues are politically sensitive because Pakistan has long faced international concern over the use of its blasphemy laws and accusations that such laws can contribute to the persecution of religious minorities.
However, those issues need to be considered separately from the question of Ashrafi’s work on behalf of Christians and other minorities.
The Church of England’s own explanation focused specifically on his reported support for religious minorities as the reason the award was initially given.
The subsequent withdrawal was based on historical comments that the Palace said had come to light.
The episode therefore illustrates the difficulty of evaluating public figures whose records contain different and potentially conflicting elements.
An individual may undertake work that supports religious minorities while also having a history of controversial political or religious statements.
The question for institutions granting awards is how those different parts of a person’s record should be assessed and whether some statements or associations are incompatible with the honour being offered.
For a religious institution, the stakes can be particularly high.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior bishop in the Church of England and holds a prominent role within the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Church describes the Archbishop as the Primate of All England and as the titular leader of the Anglican Communion.
That means decisions made at Lambeth Palace can attract attention far beyond the immediate ceremony.
Sarah Mullally became the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury in March 2026 and is the first woman to hold the office.
Her position also means that she is frequently involved in discussions concerning religious harmony, social cohesion and the role of faith communities in public life.
The decision to withdraw the award therefore represents an important attempt by the Church to distinguish its commitment to interfaith dialogue from endorsement of historical statements it now considers incompatible with the honour.
That distinction matters.
Interfaith dialogue does not require participants to agree on every political or theological question. But an institutional award communicates recognition, and recognition carries a different meaning from simply holding a meeting or participating in a discussion.
The controversy could consequently lead to greater scrutiny of future award recipients.
Institutions may face pressure to examine public statements, organisational affiliations and historical positions more carefully before associating an award with an individual.
Such scrutiny does not necessarily mean abandoning dialogue.
Indeed, the Church’s statement explicitly reaffirmed its commitment to engaging across “deeply-held differences” and to working for religious harmony.
The challenge is establishing where dialogue ends and institutional endorsement begins.
That boundary is particularly difficult when dealing with individuals who have changed their positions over time, made controversial remarks decades earlier or combined support for minority communities with other views that are regarded as unacceptable.
In Ashrafi’s case, the Church ultimately concluded that the historical comments were serious enough to justify withdrawing the honour.
The decision may prevent the controversy from becoming a prolonged dispute over whether the award itself should remain in place.
But questions about the original vetting process are likely to remain.
The incident also provides a broader lesson for public institutions operating in a politically sensitive environment.
An award can be intended to celebrate reconciliation, but the recipient’s wider public record inevitably becomes part of the story.
When that record includes comments relating to terrorism, violence or religious persecution, the consequences can be substantial.
For the Church of England, the immediate position is now clear: the award has been withdrawn, while its stated commitment to interfaith cooperation remains.
For its critics, however, the controversy raises questions about how thoroughly recipients are examined before they are publicly honoured.
For those defending the importance of interfaith engagement, the episode raises a different concern: whether fear of controversy could discourage religious leaders from engaging with difficult partners whose communities are themselves affected by conflict and extremism.
The two issues do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.
Dialogue can continue while institutions maintain rigorous standards for the honours they confer.
The events at Lambeth Palace ultimately show how quickly those two principles can collide.
An award intended to recognise cooperation between faiths became a dispute about historical statements, terrorism, religious minorities and institutional judgment.
The Church has now reversed the specific decision.
The wider question — how religious institutions should balance openness to dialogue with careful scrutiny of those they publicly honour — is likely to remain relevant long after this particular controversy has faded from the headlines.
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