AIFD Letter to: Mr. Janab Aamil Saheb, President, Anjuman-e-Najmi – Detroit

Mr. Janab Aamil Saheb April 20, 2017
President
Anjuman-e-Najmi – Detroit
23269 Potomac Circle
Farmington Hills, MI 48335

Dear Mr. Saheb and leadership of Anjuman-e-Najmi – Detroit:

Assalamu aleikum wa ramatullahi wa barakatuhu to your leadership and your community.

As a physician and as the president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, I along with my team, am seeking your urgent response on a matter of grave importance to the Muslim community and indeed the entire nation.

We are confident that you are aware of the case of Jumana Nagarwala M.D., the Detroit-area physician who was recently arrested following news that she had committed khatna – female genital mutilation – on girls here in the United States. This is a deplorable and devastating discovery of a physician who abused the trust of young Muslim girls and of the American medical system in order to carry out mutilation and torture of children and young women.

A brief review of Dr. Nagarwala’s biography and online footprint indicates that she may be an active member of your community. We also note that a Dr. Murtaza Hussain, who works at the Livernois Family Medical Center in Detroit, was arraigned in 54b District Court in East Lansing on charges related to alleged Medicaid and insurance fraud. It is unclear if this is the same Sk. Murtaza Hussain as the secretary of your organization. If this Dr. Hussain is the same as your secretary we are concerned that this clearly speaks to a larger network of illegal medical activity related to some of the leadership in your community. Sk Murtaza Hussain appears to also be one of the signatories to a letter, along with your president Sk. Saifuddin Bhabrawala dated May 11, 2016 which instructed your community to abide by the law of the land. Unfortunately the letter did not explicitly condemn all “khatna” globally but instead only instructed your community to abide by the law of this land. We hope that you will revisit this recommendation and put out an unequivocal condemnation of all “khatna” around the world as immoral and un-Islamic.

Thus, we write to:

Encourage your swift and public condemnation of Jumana Nagarwala, M.D.;
Insist that you carry out a rigorous investigation into this practice in the community, seeking out any individuals who may have worked with Jumana Nagarwala M.D. to facilitate these crimes against girls and women;
Turn in any participants and facilitators to the authorities, regardless of their stature within the community;
Publically expose and dismantle any connection between Dr. Murtaza Hussain of Livernois Family Medical Center, his medical network and members in your organization;
Publish your findings and commitment to combat any and all forms of “khatna,” or FGM, within your community;
Publish your intent to expose and dismantle familial and community networks which facilitated the crime of “khatna” in the community;
Publish a much more vigorous condemnation of all forms of “khatna” to update your position of May 11, 2016 which will now globally condemn “khatna” in all its forms as an unnecessary, immoral, and un-Islamic violation of a girls’ bodily autonomy.

By doing so, you would be expressing your solidarity with the brave women and men from within the Bohra Muslim community who have stood against this cruel practice and who have committed themselves to lives of true mercy and compassion.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D.
President & Founder
American Islamic Forum for Democracy

cc:
Mr. Janab Amil Saheb
President
Anjuman-e-Najmi – Detroit
20590 Orchard Lake
Farmington Hills, MI 48336