Elgin Islamic school leader accused of sex abuse of worker

By Madhu Krishnamurthy
Daily Herald
February 17, 2015

https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150217/news/150218988/

Mohammad Abdullah Salem

A prominent former imam and head of an Islamic school in Elgin has been accused of sexual abuse of a 23-year-old woman who worked at the school.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, 75, of the 400 block of Jean Street, Gilberts, is charged with one felony count of criminal sexual abuse.

He will appear for a bond hearing at the Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows this morning.

The charge stems from a more than two-month investigation by Elgin police into allegations of sexual abuse by Saleem, founder of the Institute of Islamic Education school, 1280 Bluff City Blvd., Elgin.

On Dec. 4, a 23-year-old woman told police she was sexually abused by Saleem in April, 2014. The abuse occurred at the school, police said.

Saleem was taken into custody Sunday without incident, police said.

But allegations of decades of sexual assault and abuse against women and minors are surfacing. Several women are expected to file a lawsuit against Saleem this morning containing allegations of sexual assault and child sexual abuse dating back to the 1980s against him.

Victims' advocates plan to read statements from the women at a news conference in downtown Chicago after the complaint is filed in Cook County circuit court.

"It's been very challenging, but at the same time also quite empowering," said Nadiah Mohajir, co-founder and executive director of Chicago-based HEART Women & Girls, a nonprofit working with sexual violence survivors and promoting sexual and reproductive health in faith-based communities. "They are finally able to find their voice and speak up against this. It's going to be a long road, but we're very proud of the bravery they have shown right now, and they have a lot of supporters."

Thomas Glasgow, an Arlington Heights attorney representing the Islamic Institute of Education, would not comment Monday on the lawsuit.

He said the mosque board is concluding its own internal investigation into the allegations against Saleem.

"We have completed six weeks worth of investigation on this," he said. "We've interviewed many people. I haven't seen anything that would give rise to credibility of the allegations."

Glasgow stressed there have been no claims of abuse made against any of the current board members or management of the mosque and school "that they had any kind of hand in anything."

The school is now run by Saleem's son. None of the board members have spoken publicly about the matter.

"Allegations of this nature, they are very inflammatory, to say the least," Glasgow said. "This is a very conservative bunch of people. These are good people running this board."

The scandal has rocked the Chicago and suburban Muslim communities where the accusations have been widely known since December.

The Elgin school's students primarily come from Indian and Pakistani Muslim immigrant families belonging to the more conservative Deobandi movement. Talking openly about sexual matters within these communities is uncommon.

The woman cited as the victim in the charges against Saleem, the 23-year-old worker at the school, last year confided in a respected Muslim scholar, Omer Mozaffar, about being sexually assaulted, Mohajir said.

Mozaffar, who teaches at the University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago, made the allegations public on his blog in December, but later took down his post.

That's when Mohajir's group began working with the woman cited in the charges against Saleem to step forward. Several others later came forward to accuse Saleem of sexual abuse after the group released a statement on its website, Mohajir said.

"The other victims had been abused as minors a long time ago (in the 1980s and 1990s)," she said. "At that point we gathered and started pulling together a legal team."

Mohajir said there has been "overwhelming positive support" for the women who have come forward.

"There are people who are committed to talking about this issue in a very public way," she said. "With any prominent, charismatic leader, when allegations like these happen, it's really hard to believe. It's devastating. There is this tremendous hurt that people will feel about this. There is a ton that they need to process. Perhaps talking about this openly, with the guidance of facilitators/mediators could help them process these allegations."

Mohajir's group conducts workshops and training about sexual violence, sex education, and how to talk to children about sexual abuse at mosques, Islamic community centers and schools. Since allegations against Saleem became widely known within the Muslim communities, the group has seen an increase in requests for such workshops, she said.