What Is the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation?

The Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation is a non-academic honour presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury to recognise outstanding contributions to reconciliation and cooperation between different faith communities. It was first awarded in March 2016 as part of a new group of Lambeth Awards introduced by Archbishop Justin Welby. The award is named after Hubert Walter, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1193 to 1205.

The award has become particularly notable in September 2026 because Pakistani Muslim cleric Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was initially listed as a recipient before Lambeth Palace later withdrew his award after earlier comments concerning Osama bin Laden resurfaced. The episode has put renewed attention on what the Hubert Walter Award represents, who receives it and how the Archbishop of Canterbury’s honours are intended to recognise interfaith work.

What does the Hubert Walter Award recognise?

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s official description is straightforward: the Hubert Walter Award recognises people who have made an outstanding contribution to reconciliation and interfaith cooperation.

The emphasis on reconciliation is important. The award is not simply a recognition for being a member of a particular religion or for holding a religious office. It is intended to acknowledge work that helps people or communities engage across religious differences.

That can include activities such as building relationships between faith communities, encouraging social cohesion, supporting dialogue or helping communities overcome religious divisions.

The award is therefore part of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s broader system of recognising contributions to the Church and wider society.

When was the Hubert Walter Award created?

The award was first presented in March 2016.

It was introduced as part of a new suite of non-academic awards announced by Archbishop Justin Welby. The new system combined three existing awards with six new awards named after previous Archbishops of Canterbury.

The 2016 ceremony included 40 recipients, including Christian and non-Christian religious leaders, political and community figures, musicians and others. The awards were intended to recognise outstanding service and to highlight examples of work reflecting the Church’s values.

The Hubert Walter Award was one of the new awards created under that system.

Who was Hubert Walter?

Hubert Walter was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1193 until 1205.

According to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official description of the award, Walter is associated with dialogue with non-Christians during a period of interfaith conflict. His name was therefore chosen for an award centred on reconciliation and cooperation between faiths.

The award also has a distinctive design. Its design incorporates a scarab beetle, a motif associated with Hubert Walter. The Archbishop’s historical description notes that some scholars believe the motif may have represented the resurrection.

Is it an academic degree?

No.

This distinction is important because the Archbishop of Canterbury has separate powers relating to Lambeth Degrees, which are academic degrees awarded under a much older legal and ecclesiastical tradition.

The Hubert Walter Award belongs instead to the Archbishop’s non-academic awards.

The Archbishop’s office describes these as awards for outstanding achievement in different fields.

The distinction means that receiving the Hubert Walter Award does not confer an academic qualification.

How does it fit into the Lambeth Awards?

The Hubert Walter Award is one of the categories in the modern Lambeth Awards programme.

At the September 11, 2026 ceremony, Archbishop Sarah Mullally presented awards to 27 people across five categories: the Canterbury Cross, Cross of St Augustine, Hubert Walter Award, Langton Award and Lanfranc Award.

The categories cover different forms of contribution.

For example, the Hubert Walter Award deals specifically with reconciliation and interfaith cooperation, while the Langton Award recognises community service and the Lanfranc Award focuses on education and scholarship.

This structure allows the Archbishop’s office to recognise different kinds of service without treating them as the same achievement.

Who received the Hubert Walter Award in 2026?

The 2026 recipients originally listed by Lambeth Palace included Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, the Reverend Elizabeth Carnelley, Dr Barbara Schwepcke and the late Reverend Dr Richard J. Sudworth OBE.

Carnelley was recognised for her work with the Near Neighbours Programme, which promotes social cohesion between community groups and people of different faiths.

Sudworth, who received the honour posthumously, had served as the Church of England’s National Inter-Religious Affairs Adviser and was recognised for his work strengthening relationships between faith communities.

These examples illustrate the breadth of work that can fall within the award’s remit.

Why was Tahir Ashrafi given the award?

Lambeth Palace said Ashrafi was recognised for his longstanding support for religious minorities in Pakistan, particularly Christians.

The Archbishop’s office said this work was valued by Christians in Pakistan, including members of the Anglican Church.

Ashrafi is chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council and has been involved in religious-harmony and interfaith initiatives.

His selection therefore fitted the formal purpose of the Hubert Walter Award: recognising work described by the awarding institution as contributing to relations between different religious communities.

Why was Ashrafi’s award later withdrawn?

The withdrawal is a separate part of the story from the award’s original purpose.

Ashrafi received the award at Lambeth Palace on September 11, 2026. On September 17, Lambeth Palace announced that the award had been withdrawn after previous comments by Ashrafi came to light.

Those comments date from 2007, when Ashrafi was involved in protests and statements surrounding Britain’s decision to award Salman Rushdie a knighthood. Contemporary reporting recorded comments concerning Osama bin Laden.

Lambeth Palace said that the earlier comments had led it to reconsider the award.

Ashrafi’s representatives have disputed the interpretation of the comments, saying they were made in the context of the Rushdie controversy and should not be treated as an endorsement of bin Laden.

That dispute over the meaning of the historical remarks is separate from the documented fact that Lambeth Palace ultimately withdrew the honour.

Does withdrawing one award change the purpose of the Hubert Walter Award?

No.

The award remains an established category within the Lambeth Awards system, with a stated purpose of recognising outstanding contributions to reconciliation and interfaith cooperation.

The 2026 controversy concerns the suitability of one recipient and the subsequent decision by Lambeth Palace to withdraw that particular award. It does not represent a change to the award’s stated purpose.

Indeed, the other 2026 recipients demonstrate that the category continues to recognise a range of interfaith and reconciliation work.

Why the award matters in the Ashrafi controversy

The specific purpose of the Hubert Walter Award is what makes the Ashrafi episode significant.

The controversy is not simply about whether a prominent religious figure made controversial comments years ago. Ashrafi had received an honour whose stated purpose was to recognise reconciliation and cooperation between faiths.

Lambeth Palace initially concluded that his work with religious minorities and interfaith relations justified the recognition. After the historical remarks resurfaced, it reached a different conclusion and withdrew the award.

That sequence raises a broader institutional question: how should an organisation weigh a person’s past public statements against later work when deciding whether that person represents the values embodied by a particular honour?

The Hubert Walter Award itself provides a clear answer about what it is designed to recognise. The Ashrafi controversy illustrates the more difficult question of how those standards should be applied when a recipient’s public record contains conflicting elements.

The award’s broader significance

The Hubert Walter Award has existed since 2016 as part of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s effort to recognise contributions beyond traditional church service.

Its focus is deliberately specific: reconciliation and interfaith cooperation.

Its recipients have included people working on social cohesion, inter-religious affairs and relationships between communities. The 2026 ceremony continued that pattern, even as the subsequent withdrawal of Ashrafi’s award created an unusual controversy around one recipient.

For readers encountering the award because of the Ashrafi story, the key distinction is worth keeping clear: **the Hubert Walter Award is an established non-academic Lambeth honour, created in 2016 to recognise outstanding work in reconciliation and interfaith cooperation. Ashrafi’s withdrawal from the 2026 recipient list is a controversy surrounding one award decision, not a redefinition of what the honour itself was created to recognise.**