ELGIN, Ill. — Ordinarily, she never wore a veil. But it was required at the Islamic school where she worked, and she remembers being surprised when the head of the school, a conservative imam, suggested that she remove it and reveal her face.
When the imam, Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, came into the office where she worked, she said, he would sometimes touch her cheek or put an arm around her shoulder. Mr. Saleem was revered in her close-knit community, and she did not object at first. But simply being alone together represented a forbidden intimacy, and looking back, she said those first gestures should have been more alarming.
“It’s not something that gets done,” the 23-year-old woman said recently. “Men and women don’t even shake hands.”
Over time, she said the touching became more aggressive, reaching a point that she did something almost unheard-of in her community. She told people: her family, a social worker, an Islamic scholar. Recently, she went to the police. As word spread of what she had told them, three other women came forward, telling detectives that as young girls they had been molested by Mr. Saleem.
In the next few days, the women will name Mr. Saleem in a lawsuit that accuses him of decades of assault and child sex abuse, according to Steven A. Denny, their lawyer. But the accusations are already widely known and deeply felt within the community of Indian and Pakistani Muslim immigrants and their families in the Chicago area for whom the Institute of Islamic Education, the school that Mr. Saleem founded, is a focal point. They have highlighted the kinds of tensions that divide a small, cloistered segment of Mr. Saleem’s followers from a more assimilated generation that bristles at the notion that such matters should be handled privately.
–
The Elgin police and prosecutors have interviewed the three women. A fourth, who declined to be interviewed, told the authorities that Mr. Saleem molested her while she was a student in 2002 and 2003, according to Mr. Denny, her lawyer. Mr. Glasgow, the lawyer for Mr. Saleem, said he was unaware of these allegations. The statute of limitations has expired on the claims dating to the 1980s.
“It’s an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual offenses,” said Cmdr. Ana Lalley of the Elgin police.
Mr. Saleem said in the interview that he was still teaching at the school, though he officially retired in October, and that his son Ubaidulla had replaced him. “These are good, peaceful, kind, conscientious people trying to do the right thing in the face of some pretty nasty allegations against a former employee,” Mr. Glasgow, the lawyer, said.
Mr. Mozaffar said he had heard criticism that he had brought negative attention on Muslims at a time when terrorism fears have made many Americans suspicious of them. “There is a notion that we are already under assault. Why add more fuel?” he said.
But he said none of this had to do with Islam. “The Catholics aren’t the only ones who have pedophiles and the Muslims aren’t the only ones who have terrorists,” he said.
