Archbishop of Canterbury presents award to modern Muslim Islamist. By Pete Smith in Quadrant.

AI assures me, because I couldn’t believe it, that this is a real photograph taken at Lambeth Palace. It captures the Most Reverend Sarah Mullally presenting the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation to Pakistani cleric Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi.

Lest you mistake her for a pillar of coal, the encased figure standing between the Archbishop and the cleric in the pictures is the wife. Of what number I know not. …

The Muslim cleric pictured is a strong supporter of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and the death penalty that accompanies them. And he has opined that the Iran war is all about Jews and Christians targeting Iran’s nuclear power. He was also a fanboy of Osama Bin Laden. What a very model of a modern Muslim Islamist. …

The award was presented on September 11 (9/11). Yes, it is unbelievable.

Presumably, and thankfully, once a rudimentary Googling had been done on the character of the cleric, the Archbishop saw the light and withdrew the award on September 17.

What a complete fiasco from the Church of England … Mind you, Pope Paul II got into the act early by kissing the Quran in 1999. It is all mightily unbelievable. How about a grand mufti kissing the Bible? Show me that and I’ll show you a dead mufti.

Notice that the award seems to be hanging around the neck of the aforementioned wife. I imagine that the Muslim cleric would not allow himself to be soiled by wearing a Christian decoration, particularly bestowed by a mere woman. And touching hands would have been verboten absolutely. … So put that in your pipe and smoke it, feminists for Palestine.

Well said.

hat-tip Stephen Neil