Founder of Elgin Islamic school charged with sexually assaulting woman

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune
February 17, 2015

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-chicago-muslim-religious-leader-faces-sexualabuse-charge-20150217-story.html

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, 75, right, founder of the Islamic Institute for Education has been charged with assaulting a woman who worked at the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, authorities said.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, 75, founder of the Islamic Institute for Education has been charged with assaulting a woman who worked at the northwest suburban school last year, authorities said.

A prominent Muslim scholar and founder of an Elgin Islamic school has been charged with assaulting a woman who worked at the northwest suburban school last year, authorities said.

 Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, 75, is the founder of the Islamic Institute for Education, a boarding school where thousands of Chicago area youth have immersed themselves in study of the Quran. He is accused of assaulting a 23-year-old woman who worked there last year, Elgin police said.

The woman filed a criminal complaint with Elgin police in December. She and three other women plan to file a civil lawsuit Tuesday, according to her lawyer Steven Denny. The other women allege they were abused as minors.

Saleem’s attorney, Thomas Glasgow, said the school hired his firm several months ago to investigate allegations against Saleem that had been posted on a blog by Loyola University Chicago chaplain Omer Muzaffar.

The accusations have shocked the South Asian Muslim community, who for decades has considered Saleem one of the area’s leading orthodox scholars.

Saleem is charged with criminal sexual abuse, a Class 4 felony. He will appear in Cook County bond court Tuesday.