Pakistani Christians could face renewed persecution following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to withdraw an honour to a leading Muslim cleric, Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali has warned on The Spectator’s Holy Smoke podcast.
The former Bishop of Rochester was speaking to Damian Thompson following the news that Lambeth Palace revoked an award to Hafiz Ashrafi after ‘previous comments’ by the Imam came to light. After the ‘Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation’ award was presented on 11 September, it emerged that Ashrafi had praised Osama bin Laden in 2007, saying he would give the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks the title Saifullah, or ‘Sword of God’, for ’serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels’. He said that his remarks had been ‘totally taken out of context’ and the backlash had been ‘an unfair campaign’ against him.
The question remains as to ‘why there was not due diligence,’ Nazir-Ali told Holy Smoke, saying Pakistani Christian leaders now fear a backlash. The ‘reactionary action on the part of extremists’ should have been thought about before making the announcement, Nazir-Ali said. He went on to say that ’some signal needs to be given that Christians in Pakistan are not responsible for whatever has happened,’ and that in his view this will require action from the Foreign Office.
Nazir-Ali, now a priest of the Catholic Ordinariate who was born in Pakistan, is a world renowned authority on Islamic relations with Christianity. He was speaking to Holy Smoke about the debacle over the award, as well as the increasing secularisation and desecration of British churches.
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