Archbishop of Canterbury withdraws award from Muslim cleric who praised Osama bin Laden

[SigmundinaCafe]

I couldn't see another thread on this topic.

I'm a Christian (born into a Catholic family, yet not aligned to any particular Church) but am AIBU for thinking that that CoE has completely lost the plot? Everything about this stinks to high heaven. Are they not embarrassed or ashamed?

Before you get in to how dodgy this guy is, his wife can't even see properly because of how he makes her dress (see pictures of her niqab, her eyes are barely visible).

This was Nick Timothy on X yesterday:

"The Archbishop of Canterbury has given Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi an award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation. He's the chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council - a group of Islamic scholars. The lady next to him is his wife. But why did the Church grant him this award?

Presumably not for his support for Islamic blasphemy laws in Pakistan and the death penalty that comes with them?

Nor for his reported comments that suicide bombings in Afghanistan were lawful?

(Ashrafi later claimed his comments were taken out of context, but they were deemed sufficiently serious for the NATO Secretary General to respond)

The naivety of our public institutions for engaging with people like this is staggering.

But not surprising.

We are failed time and again by liberals who believe other cultures are basically the same as ours, and the world is or wants to be just like
us."

Now I may be more sensitive than most because I'm a Christian and my husband is Jewish, but is it really too much to ask our institution of English national life not to cosey up to religious extremists who hold women in contempt (and who lets face it would be happy to see most of us dead).

He looks well fed though so clearly being the chairman of the Ulema Council pays very well!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckr50lrz5e6zo

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/17/archbishop-award-911-anniversary-cleric-bin-laden/

It's not as if we didn't previously have a much more robust attitude. In the Blair years extremist preachers were jailed or deported; honor killings and forced marriage had a government task force. There was no equivocation or "context" for terrorists. Just because the Iraq war was a stupid and counterproductive mistake doesn't make everything about that more defensive era wrong.

But they do express strong views. They express strong progressive left views. Look at how CoWales (and many others) expressed their strong support for trans identified people after the Supreme Court ruling but have been silent about what was happening to women through gender ideology.

They are not been neutral and wishy washy. They have taken a strong firm political position. That is why their churches are failing. If you do that you alienate ( a) people who don't have the same political views and (b) those who will have the same views can get their social political community from the secular world, so why go to the church for this? (c) those who think church should be about God not politics.

"Judge not...you hypocrite ". This is quite a misunderstood verse.
This does not in any way allow us to abstain from moral judgement, simply not to by hypocrites.
What this man has done does not stand up to scrutiny in a decent moral society and he should absolutely be judges, as should The Arch for being stupid enough not to check her facts.
Bad optics does not even cover it !!!!

It’s not a requirement of Islam for women to cover their faces which the cleric will know and the Archbishop should know. It’s also possible to know this by travelling to Muslim countries. Generally Emirati women do not cover their faces and I believe even Saudi has now relaxed rules on this. No more religious police in the malls telling you to cover up. It tells you something when there are probably more women with covered faces in the UK now than there are in Saudi Arabia.

As the saying goes:

"If you want to find out who holds power, first find out who you can't criticise."

There's a bunch of people in this thread who are being very critical about Islam. Unless they've subsequently been locked up I'm guessing we're safe to criticise it. So your quote is fear-mongering bollocks.

I don't know the particular people involved but heard a piece on the radio this morning. Do not assume the wife wears a veil/niqab because he "makes her", there are unmarried women in the UK who choose to do so, against the wishes of their family. I went to school with a few like this, there was familial pressure against it, but they did it regardless. One of them said this was feminism in her opinion.

Agree. We’ve lost the plot. We are sitting ducks at the moment.

The lady next to him is his wife. How do we know that? It could be anyone. Full face coverings should be banned, there’s no place for this backwards nonsense in the UK.

Can we defrock or whatever the term is the Archbishop of Canterbury? She and her ilk are a disgrace.

The £100 million of church funds set aside for reparations - to whom are they giving this money? It’s a ridiculous concept. Beautiful churches are crumbling but oh no, the pittances collected every week from congregations must be funnelled to “causes” approved by the elite.

And as for the St Paul’s raves… as several people have observed, let’s see raves in the Central London Mosque - and Sadiq Khan and CofE praising these.

I am not religious, but am a culturalist if that is a thing, and my blood pressure is through the roof!

I see this country and the west in general as being in the middle of a continental split. On one hill in the west, you have the Progressives - political and Christian leaders and their followers alike, all beavering madly away in the name of inclusivity, wringing their hands at the perceived horror of previous deeds done by those long dead in some cases and trying desperately to be liked and feel virtuous and good at the same time. On the other hill, the Regressives, the camp I unashamedly put the religion of Islam and most of its followers into. The people on that hill give not a hoot whether they are liked; they feel full of virtue they’re doing allahs work and that’s enough for them and drives them ever onward. As the continents move apart, there is a massive gulf of people sliding down both hills into the widening sea at the bottom. They’re all starting to sink because they never thought swimming lessons were useful but now they just really want to be back on familiar land again. The problem is, at the moment, the Regressives seem to be stronger swimmers who’ve had more training, and will happily clamber all over the Progressives to get back on land, any land will do, and eventually they’ll stop the Progressives from leaving the water at all, on either side of the gulf. Especially as their numbers are higher than the Progressives and they can hold the shore.
And the rest of us that just went about our lives, and don’t really fall into either camp especially, who lived on the lowlands perhaps, and just want to get on with living, with our familiar western culture and values and freedoms that we have been used to. We are going to be the collateral damage in that race to shore.

Lucky we're not doing it in the public eye, like Saman Rushdie, who still has a fatwa against him and is now blinded in one eye as a result of an attempt on his life, or the journalists killed in Paris or the a headteacher who has spent years in hiding or the autistic child who was subjected to death threats by adults because he dropped the Koran on the floor then isn't it? For the last two, the perpetrators were not punished, and the child had to apologise in order for the death threats to stop. Naive doesn't even cut it. It's always the same men who have imposed control on women in their own family who push the boundaries and find politicians and authorities telling them there aren't any.

Well there are some quite obvious case studies from across the Middle East, which used to be a majority Christian continent. Lebanon and Egypt spring to mind. History books are a good place to start.

That's a long winded way of saying the left advocate equality, whereas the right don't. The right represent common sense and the left want to fuck that up by being virtuous, for the sake of it. Look at any protest organised by the right - the left always have to set up a counter protest. Of course everything comes down to left and right. The division is caused by pushing liberalism so far the other way.

That is the point I was making.

There are different schools of Islam and some do believe the face covering is a requirement.

I agree with the poster below that there are women in this country wearing the niqab of their own free will.

There are also muslim women who do not believe wearing hijab is mandatory.

I also agree that there has been a worldwide revival in Islam to a more religious/observant Islam, bearing in mind that Islam is much more of a system for living life and a political system than Christianity is. It is also overtly an expansionist religion and has been from its inception, and it has powerful factions within it that are overtly trying to Islamise other countries and ultimately take them over with their version of Islam. Actual Muslim countries are much more alert to this threat than are our naive political leaders and followers of the left. I believe the UAE has advised families to stop sending their children to UK universities due to the risk of radicalisation by Islamists. We, however, are too naive and the Labour party too scared of losing muslim votes to take action on the threat in our own country.

I did not ask about “what Islam requires”. Many muslim women will offer different interpretations and understanding of their faith and as such their attire will reflect that.

I asked specifically how OP knows this woman’s attire was selected for her by her husband (i.e does she know this woman or is she engaging in White Saviour paternalism?)

Do you have an actual source for any of this? (And when did the ME become a continent?)

(Although I am not sure that “area was majority one faith now it’s another” is something unique to Islam. The Americas were not majority Christian now they are.)

Sorry, I didn't mean to start and thread and then not come back to it. But I have slowly been reading all the responses this morning, in between various jobs.

At least I know I'm not going mad and others are also appalled by this act of stupidity.

I used to attend our local church, which is CoE with our now three year old and we had to stop going. The vicar who took over almost a year ago is exactly the same profile and type of the ABC - a woke, virtue signaller with luxury beliefs. When she started using her sermons to take sly digs at Israel I just thought, you know what: #@*& you. I come to church to get away from politics, not to hear you opine on Geopolitical issues you have a really weak grasp of anyway.

And I totally agree about that Rave in the Nave Fabric event at St Paul's cathedral. It takes quite a bit to offend me, but I am absolutely livid about that. So disrespectful. Sadiq Kahm loves it of course....it's a desecration of a sacred space and an affront to our religious and historical heritage.