The An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) has moved to dis­tance it­self from claims by Imam Kaz­im Ali that Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s in­ter­ac­tions with fe­male mem­bers of the Is­lam­ic faith on Mon­day dur­ing the Eid cel­e­bra­tions in San Fer­nan­do, were un­eth­i­cal and dis­re­spect­ful.

Ali, who is the chair­man of the Imams Coun­cil and al­so a mem­ber of AS­JA, yes­ter­day is­sued a voice mes­sage con­demn­ing what he claimed was, “The bla­tant dis­re­spect for Is­lam­ic rules re­lat­ed to in­ter­ac­tions and touch­ing of Mus­lim women and men who are strangers showed by PM Stu­art Young and Kam­la (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) yes­ter­day. It is a dis­grace to think PNM and UNC feels Mus­lims are fools and can be ma­nip­u­lat­ed. “There are no de­cent Mus­lim politi­cians on both sides and we will silent­ly tell our mem­ber­ship to not vote (sic) Kam­la and her LGBTQIA’s and stay far from Stu­art Young’s dis­re­spect for the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty.”

Re­spond­ing to the voice note which was cir­cu­lat­ed via What­sApp with the ac­com­pa­ny­ing text, act­ing AS­JA Pres­i­dent, Imam Ahamad Ho­sein stressed, “That is not the view of the en­tire AS­JA mem­ber­ship.”

Go­ing on to de­fend Young’s pres­ence at the Ja­ma Masjid, San Fer­nan­do on March 31, Ho­sein said, “He did not go there or in­ter­act with these peo­ple un­in­vit­ed.”

Ho­sein clar­i­fied that Young, just like for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, had been present at the an­nu­al event at the in­vi­ta­tion of the Ja­maat—and had been ac­com­pa­nied by Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein.

Re­it­er­at­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter had done noth­ing wrong as was be­ing in­ferred, Ho­sein dis­missed Ali’s claims that no Mahrams were around when he posed with some fe­male mem­bers for pic­tures.

Af­ter car­ry­ing out his own checks, Ho­sein said, “This is not true.”

A Mahram is a per­son with whom a woman has a spe­cif­ic fa­mil­ial re­la­tion­ship, and of­ten serve as pro­tec­tors and com­pan­ions for oth­ers in the faith.

Ho­sein in­sist­ed Young, “Did not go there on his own, so the in­ter­ac­tion he had with the peo­ple, is nor­mal.”

In­di­cat­ing Ali was free to is­sue a state­ment in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty and would not face any con­se­quences for speak­ing out, Ho­sein agreed it would have been more pru­dent for him to con­sult with AS­JA be­fore re­leas­ing the text and voice note.

“He was sup­posed to have con­sul­ta­tion with us which he did not do, be­fore he say any­thing like that or is­sue a pub­lic state­ment,” Ho­sein said.

Pressed to com­ment on the call for mem­bers of the Is­lam­ic faith to with­hold their vote in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion on April 28, Ho­sein al­so dis­missed this call.

He said, “No, we wouldn’t share that view.”

“We are not po­lit­i­cal­ly af­fil­i­at­ed with any group, PNM, UNC, who­ev­er.”

To all AS­JA mem­bers, he ad­vised, “Do not pay heed to this. This is not a call by the of­fi­cers or trustees of AS­JA.”

He in turn, urged every­one to go out and vote for who they wished.

The UNC po­lit­i­cal leader did not re­spond to mes­sages for her take on the Imam’s com­ments.