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Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation on 11 September for his “outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan”.
A week later, Lambeth Palace announced that it had been withdrawn, after previous comments made by Mr Ashrafi came to light, including a decision to honour Osama bin Laden as a “Sword of God” in response to Salman Rushdie’s being given a knighthood.
In an interview with Canon Chris Sugden on the Anglican Mainstream website on Saturday, Dr Marshall said that the Church of Pakistan had been “deeply humiliated” by the withdrawal of the award to Mr Ashrafi. “He trusted Canterbury as a Church office and took his wife and daughter there. This is a highest offence against him and us.”
And Mr Ashrafi told the Church Times on Wednesday that he had been subject to “propaganda” and that comments about his wife’s wearing of the niqab had caused her to be “in grief”.
After the presentation, two Conservative shadow ministers, Nick Timothy and Rebecca Paul, wrote a letter to Archbishop Mullally warning that the episode had caused the Church “serious reputational damage” because of previous remarks made by Mr Ashrafi.
On Tuesday, Mr Ashrafi spoke of attempts on his life because of his efforts to speak out against terrorism and extremism, and suggested that critics of the Archbishop were “attacking because she is a woman, and that is politics, not a religion”.
He said: “Hopefully, one day I think these people will realise they are on wrong side and we are right side because we believe in Allah, in our work, in humanity, in peace and dialogue. We do not believe in a propaganda campaign.”
The award nomination was instigated by the Church of Pakistan during Archbishop Welby’s 2022 visit to the country. Mr Ashrafi took responsibility for the Primate’s safety during the trip to Peshawar, the site of a recent terrorist attack, Dr Marshall said.
Dr Marshall gave as an another example of Mr Ashrafi’s “tremendous work” his condemnation of the mob violence against Christians in Jaranwala in 2023. In relation to blasphemy laws, he had been “instrumental in releasing many people before the mob can lynch them”, Dr Marshall said.
“Canterbury had the time and ought to have done due diligence if they wanted to or if they had questions,” he said. “But right at the end, I mean, it was so unfair.” When it came to Mr Ashrafi’s past comments, he said: “People change, and he has definitely demonstrated deep respect for Christians, which has to count for something.” Dr Marshall had “pleaded” with Lambeth Palace not to withdraw the award.
The episode meant that the Church had “lost confidence and standing as a national or international community” in its own country, he said.
The interview was accompanied by an article by Dr Marshall’s daughter, Michelle Samuel, programme director of Lahore College of Theology. “In a bid for curated bespoke optics that tell a sanitised story, the Church in Pakistan’s telling of gritty reality was discarded,” she wrote. “Canterbury treated a relationship formed in the dangerous realities of Pakistan as though it were a public-relations object that could be displayed and then removed when the British political weather changed.”
She acknowledged that Mr Ashrafi’s earlier remarks were “deeply offensive”, but said that he “should have been asked to defend himself and address them directly, state whether he repudiates them, and explain the change his later work represents”.
Among her recommendations was that Lambeth Palace should confirm whether “appropriate government or security advice was sought” during the débâcle. “An institution that frequently intervenes in political questions cannot treat basic due diligence as an afterthought when an overseas Church’s safety and credibility are at stake.”
A graduate of Punjab University, Mr Ashrafi attended the Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore, a centre of Islamic learning named after Ashraf Ali Thanawi, a traditionalist Deobandi Sufi and scholar. Besides coordinating the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s interfaith and counter-extremism body, he chairs the All Pakistan Ulema Council — which, according to the Pakistani Dawn newspaper, serves as “a bridge between the government and different religious groups — both extremist and moderate — whenever the need arises”.
In 2016, the Council issued a fatwa against Islamic State and other terrorists groups. The previous year, Mr Ashrafi received threats from the Pakistan Taliban, having condemned an attack on an army school in Pakistan.
In a 2017 article, Dawn said that he was “known among journalists in Lahore as a ‘liberal’ cleric”, noting his “moderate” stance on issues including sectarian violence, militancy, and suicide attacks.
The Rt Revd Samuel Azariah, a previous Moderator, said in a statement: “People must be evaluated in light of their capacity to change, grow, and contribute positively to society. . . reconciliation itself rests upon the conviction that transformation is possible.”
His words were echoed by the Revd Rana Khan, who began his ministry in the Church of Pakistan, served as an interfaith adviser under Archbishop Rowan Williams, and is now Leader of the St Catwg Ministry Area, Crickhowell, in the diocese of Swansea & Brecon. “Christians desperately need a sound theological framework for reflecting on statements people may have made decades ago,” he said. “Christianity calls us not simply to judge people by their past words, but to remain open to the possibility of grace, growth, and transformation.”
On Tuesday, the Vicar of St Cuthbert’s, Burnley, Canon Munawar Din, who grew up in Pakistan, spoke of his concern for Christians in Pakistan in the wake of the row. The situation was a “mess”, he said. “We are fine here. Mistakes can happen, and you try to correct them. But when we do anything like this, there is a bigger factor for other communities around the world.” The situation “could have been avoided, with proper and rigorous processes”.
The way forward was “interfaith dialogue”, he said, as was happening in Burnley, and prayer for the situation was essential. “Let the Holy Spirit lead us in the right direction.”
On Tuesday, Dr Amineh Hoti, global programme director and international peacebuilding leader at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, spoke of the wider context in which the controversy had taken place, including “a deep lack of understanding” and a need for more “deep interaction” between Christians and Muslims.
“We sometimes categorise people in good and bad boxes, but humans are more complex than that,” she said. “Pope Francis says that we should be more tolerant of even the more fundamentalist people in our own faiths and explain things to them in the hope that their perspective grows. We should not be dismissive or arrogant because we may think that our perspective is more evolved. And the best interfaith dialogue is not with people who think like ‘us’, but those most different to us in their thinking, dress, and words, because that is where true change can happen, often through holding space and kindness.”
The backlash to the Lambeth Palace award began with a focus on a photo of its presentation, in which Archbishop Mullally stood next to Mr Ashrafi’s wife, Saima Ashrafi, who was wearing the niqab. In their letter, Mr Timothy and Ms Paul said that it “could appear to condone one of the most repressive manifestations of Islam”, and that women around the world and in Britain faced “coercion and culture pressure to veil themselves too”. Women clergy in the Church of England were among those raising concerns.
On Tuesday, Mr Ashrafi said that it was his wife’s choice to wear the niqab, which was “our sharia, Islamic hijab, an Islamic value”. The same was true of his daughter, who had recently graduated as doctor. “If she said, ‘No I don’t wear,’ then I would not push that,” he said. “You must understand why I give this award to my wife because my whole life after my marriage she helped me lots in my work against extremism and terrorism.” He spoke of their 22-year marriage and six children.
The comments about his wife’s attire were “very, very bad”, made by “close-minded people”, and had caused her to be “in grief”, he said. “The Archbishop of Canterbury is without hijab and wears what she wants; my wife wears what she wants. . . I am proud of my wife, and she is proud of me, and if we are happy, why does anybody have any problem?”
A Lambeth Palace spokesman said on Wednesday: “Archbishop Sarah is reflecting carefully on the very difficult events of the past week. She has been in personal contact with Archbishop Azad and continues to seek to understand more fully his views on the situation. While there was no intention to cause offence or distress, she recognises that this situation has caused significant upset and concern to many in and outside the Church — both here and in Pakistan — and views that as a matter of deep regret.
“Archbishop Sarah is praying particularly for the leadership of the Church of Pakistan, and for all those who hold its interfaith relationships, which she knows have been forged in immensely challenging circumstances. Archbishop Sarah continues to pray for Pakistan’s Christian community and for the people of Pakistan.”