Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury withdraws award to Muslim cleric who praised bin Laden after 9/11 backlash

The Archbishop of Canterbury has withdrawn an interfaith award she presented to a Pakistani Muslim cleric after reports revealed that he had previously praised Osama bin Laden, an honor made all the more controversial because it was presented on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Dame Sarah Mullally, the leader of the Church of England, presented Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi with the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation during a Sept. 11 ceremony at Lambeth Palace.

The award recognized Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council, for what Lambeth Palace described as his work “promoting interfaith harmony” and supporting religious minorities in Pakistan.

But a report Thursday by The Telegraph revealed a considerably more complicated record, including Ashrafi’s past remarks about Osama bin Laden and his support for Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws.

The Telegraph reported that in 2007, amid Muslim protests over Britain’s decision to knight The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, Ashrafi reacted by stating that bin Laden deserved the Islamic honorific Saifullah, or “Sword of God.”

Ashrafi justified the proposed honor by describing bin Laden as a fighter “serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels.”

Dame Mullally's choice of Sept. 11 for the award ceremony magnified the controversy, considering that  Al-Qaeda terrorists killed 2,977 people in the attacks on the United States in 2001.

The Telegraph reported that British Conservative shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy sharply criticized the archbishop’s judgment.

“The naivety of the Archbishop … is staggering,” Timothy said, adding that the timing on the anniversary of 9/11 made the decision still more remarkable.

Tim Dieppe, head of public policy at the Christian advocacy organization Christian Concern, said Mullally appeared “clearly uninformed” about Ashrafi and questioned how the leader of the Church of England could give an award for reconciliation to someone with such a record.

That concern is particularly significant because Christians in Pakistan have long faced threats and prosecution under the country's blasphemy laws. Critics noted that Ashrafi has defended those laws even though he has also intervened on behalf of Christians in particular cases and has built a public reputation as an opponent of terrorism and sectarian violence.

The Rev. Ian Paul, an Anglican theologian and member of the Church of England’s General Synod, argued that Anglicans would have difficulty reconciling the award with Ashrafi’s previous statements involving blasphemy, capital punishment, and suicide bombings.

Paul warned that the episode could damage both Anglicans’ confidence in their church and the Church of England’s broader public reputation.

Terrorism survivor Travis Frain, who was injured in the 2017 Westminster Bridge attack, told The Telegraph that “giving an award for ‘interfaith and reconciliation’ to a man who honoured Osama Bin Laden, the architect of misery for so many of all faiths and a man responsible for thousands of deaths, shows a grave misjudgement by the Church – made even more egregious by the fact that this award was given on the 25th Anniversary of the September 11th Attacks.” 

The National Secular Society was even more severe, calling it “obscene, and almost beyond parody” that an award celebrating interfaith cooperation had been given on the anniversary of 9/11 to a cleric associated with such remarks about bin Laden.

“This demonstrates appallingly poor judgment,” NSS spokesman Alejandro Sanchez said, arguing that interfaith dialogue should not require religious leaders to overlook statements supportive of extremism.

The mounting criticism raised an obvious question for Lambeth Palace: How had one of the world’s most prominent Christian institutions vetted the recipient of an award specifically intended to recognize reconciliation?

By Thursday, the Anglican headquarters reversed course, stating that “previous comments made by Imam Ashrafi have come to light that have led Lambeth Palace to reconsider this award,” confirming that the honor had been withdrawn.