The AMSS (UK) Building Bridges Award 2012 was presented to Professor Nabil Matar by Dr Anas. S. Al-Shaikh-Ali, at the “Acknowledging a Shared Past to Build a Shared Future: Rethinking Muslim/Non-Muslim Relations” which took place at Cambridge University on 28 – 30th March 2012. The conference was organized by the British Council and HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies (University of Cambridge) in cooperation with the AMSS UK, the Carnegie Corporation, the Woolf Institute (University of Cambridge), and the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World, (University of Edinburgh).

Professor Matar gave a lecture entitled "Henry Stubbe and the Prophet Muhammad: Challenging Misrepresentation" at the conference, after which he was presented with the Award for his “pioneering scholarship on the relationship between Islamic civilization and early modern Europe as well as raising awareness of the historical roots of Western perceptions of Islam.”