ILLINOIS
WBEZ
[with audio]
March 10, 2015
By: Odette Yousef
As the criminal trial gets underway for a prominent Islamic scholar charged with sexual assault, some Chicago-area Muslims are calling for an investigation into what community leaders may have known about prior allegations of misconduct.
Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, 75, has been criminally charged with assaulting a female employee at the Institute for Islamic Education, a religious school he founded in west suburban Elgin, Ill. Additionally, Saleem has also been accused in a civil lawsuit of assaulting three other females who were students at the school.
“A lot of people depended upon his advice,” Dr. Mohammed Kaiseruddin said of Saleem. Kaiseruddin is chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, the largest coalition of Muslim institutions in Illinois. “So right now we are dealing with a dilemma that this person who is teaching the Quran to everybody was violating (the) Quran himself.”
When the allegations first surfaced in early December, a number of people both inside and outside the leadership ranks, called on the Council to act. After much back and forth between members of its House of Representatives, a body made up of leaders of its member organizations and former Council chairmen, it issued a statement.
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