{"id":147376,"date":"2026-09-18T17:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=147376"},"modified":"2026-09-18T18:16:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:16:51","slug":"church-times-lambeth-palace-withdraws-award-given-to-muslim-cleric-after-urgent-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=147376","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Lambeth Palace withdraws award given to Muslim cleric after \u2018urgent review\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/interfaith\">interfaith<\/a>\u00a0award given to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/islammuslims\">Muslim<\/a>\u00a0cleric by the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/archbishop-of-canterbury\">Archbishop of Canterbury<\/a>\u00a0last week (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/18-september\/news\/uk\/former-church-times-editor-among-recipients-of-lambeth-awards-2026\">News,18 September<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation last Friday \u2014 11 September \u2014 for his \u201coutstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan\u201d. He was described in the citation as a \u201cprominent Muslim scholar and religious leader in Pakistan, known for his unwavering commitment to promoting religious tolerance and interfaith harmony\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<em>Church Times<\/em>&nbsp;understands that Mr Ashrafi\u2019s nomination was made before Archbishop Mullally\u2019s time in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Photos of Mr Ashrafi receiving the award from the Archbishop next to his wife wearing the niqab attracted attention after being published on social media on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, began publishing links to previous comments made by Mr Ashrafi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/25-september\/news\/uk\/lambeth-palace-withdraws-award-given-to-muslim-cleric-after-urgent-review\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an interfaith award given to a Muslim cleric by the Archbishop of Canterbury last week<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GYqfoUtH6o\">https:\/\/t.co\/GYqfoUtH6o<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/2100935597217009935?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lambeth Palace said on Thursday that it had withdrawn an\u00a0interfaith\u00a0award given to a\u00a0Muslim\u00a0cleric by the\u00a0Archbishop of Canterbury\u00a0last week (News,18 September). Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation last Friday \u2014 11<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=147376\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,324,199,168,161,426,659,108,694],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archbishop-of-canterbury","category-church-of-england","category-england-uk","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-inter-faith-relations","category-islam","category-muslim-christian-relations","category-religion-culture","category-sarah-mullaly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147376"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147379,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147376\/revisions\/147379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}