Following his conviction in 2016 of the molestation of an innocent girl and sexually assaulting an innocent woman, Mohammad Saleem was told by an official that he was no longer allowed “at or in the Institute of Islamic Education.”
It’s the boarding school for religious purposes located in Elgin, which the Muslim scholar established years earlier. He was the principal at the time he committed the crime, which now forces the registration of an offender of child sexual sex for the remainder of his life by submitting his name, photograph, and address listed in the online database of Illinois State Police.
However, Saleem is still a part of the supervision team at the School. Although Illinois law bans child sex offenders from living more than 500 yards away from schools, Elgin police records show that his current home lies “well within” that distance.
In August, The Institute of Islamic Education posted on its Facebook page that the School is “under the eminent supervision and wise guidance of Hadhrat Maulana Mohammed Abdullah Saleem Sahib.”
This is a reference to Saleem as the son of Saleem, Sulaiman Saleem, the current president of the co-educational Elgin school for children between middle high and high school age. Many of them are boarders.
On Jul. 20, 2022, a different Facebook post included images of Mohammad Saleem seated inside the mosque next to the School during an event to celebrate graduation. A photo of diplomas.
It is reported that the Illinois State Board of Education has listed Mohammad Saleem as the School’s administrator. Sulaiman Saleem says the organization “did not update their list.” He claims that the son’s father “doesn’t have any position” in the School.
Role in school oversight continues.
But Sulaiman Saleem claims that his father, who’s 84 years old, still helps in school affairs.
He says he’s doing this in compliance with the conditions of his court case, which stipulate that he isn’t allowed to be at School.
“‘Supervise’ does not mean ‘present,’ “The younger Saleem stated. “He’s the one who started it, so the founder is giving advice and suggestions. He doesn’t need to attend the School for this purpose. He can make it happen over the phone.
“Supervision isn’t necessarily about physically supervising. It’s more of a guidance sense since the man has so much knowledge. He’s followed the laws. Nothing in the law states that he shouldn’t oversee something.”
If asked about what Mohammad Saleem does for the School, his son replies, “Like for instance, the education and the subject matter we learn. We have a lot of books. The Quran contains a myriad of explanations.”
His father may recommend which “books are good for teaching in certain classes for certain age groups.”
Sulaiman Saleem says that although his father was present at the ceremony, as the Facebook post demonstrates the post, his presence was not denied by the judge.
“I was there during this whole event, and we made sure that nothing illegal would happen,” Saleem’s younger Saleem declares. “He is not banned. He is permitted to participate in prayer and other programs.”
The judge’s ruling states that the older Saleem has been “allowed to attend his mosque for worship.”
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When asked what message it could convey by having him in the mosque for school functions with children regardless of his beliefs, Sulaiman Saleem said, “If the person doesn’t attend but he’s still there, it’ll be a negative signal to the community, because a lot of people who attend these events would like to see him there.
“They ask us and him, too, but due to his health, he rarely participates in the programs,” said the doctor.
Phoned, Mohammad Saleem handed the call to a person who requested a journalist to reach Sulaiman Saleem.
Sulaiman Saleem says his father also offers tips to “community members.” We can’t stop them. … This is a free society.”
“No, no, not students,” the man states of the people who call his father. He says those who keep in touch via his father are “former students who have graduated. It is impossible to stop them. They are adults.”
As per Elgin police documents, the department received complaints about Mohammad Saleem still teaching at the School in 2017 following his conviction. A school official later told an investigator that it was false, and the investigation was ultimately closed.
Included on state school records
Mohammad Saleem is listed on the School’s websitSchoolhe School’s foSchool’s the 1980s. He is also listed on the School’s Twitter account X/Twitter.
As per Jackie Matthews, a spokeswoman for the state board of education, the School Schoolted the name of Saleem’s father as its director to Illinois officials over 20 years ago. “And yes, the administrator name remains the same unless the school provides an update,” Matthews states. “We will contact the school to confirm he is no longer the administrator and get the correct administrator’s name.”
Elgin officers who oversee sexual offenders within their area aren’t going to comment.
When Mohammed Saleem’s plea bargain in August of 2016, he was living in the mosque’s rectory that is located on the Islamic School’s campus in Elgin, according to the court records.
According to reports, he was permitted to stay in the country following his conviction, for whom he was sent the term of 24 months probation.
The arrangement was questioned and resulted in a session before the judge who ratified his plea bargain, Cook County Judge James Karahalios. In the hearing in 2017, Karahalios issued an order clarifying that Mohammad Saleem could stay there.
Karahalios permitted Saleem to continue attending worship services at the mosque, but he claimed he was not allowed to enter the adjacent schools.
Karahalios, now retired, stated, “It isn’t a situation that I invented the order or these terms. The defense and the state ensured that all of it was hammered out. I accepted the ratification. If concerns concern me, they must be reported to the state’s attorney general to determine if they are required to submit a petition to the judge.”
A spokesperson for the State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx, says, “The plea deal was agreed upon by all parties … including victims.” However, she adds it is “the court that made the decision.”
Indeed, the Cook County probation office won’t discuss Saleem’s current residence. However, Elgin police records indicate that the probationer “expressed concern [in] reference [to] Saleem’s proximity to the school” during the hearing in 2017.
The victim’s account
Sadia Ahmed Sarwar alleges Mohammad Saleem molested her as a teen while he was staying as a guest at the home of her family’s northwest suburban residence soon after arriving in the Chicago region from India over 40 years back. Sarwar says Saleem abused her and a fellow student when he was teaching his students the Quran.
“Why is this man living and being able to walk on the street without any ramifications?” Sarwar declares when she speaks to the media. “He did such horrible things to so many people.” Yet she adds, “Nothing happened to him at all.”
She was one of the two women and one man who filed a lawsuit against Mohammad Saleem and the School in 2015, claiming he and a former employee were sexually assaulted. The accuser and the others in the lawsuit were dismissed because too much time had passed before they were in a position to sue. Three accusers continued the case. However, the outcome is still unclear.
Criminal charges were brought in the year 2015, in which Mohammad Saleem pleaded guilty the following year to sexually abusing a woman and a girl.
At the time of the hearing in the courtroom, prosecutor Jaclyn Lantz claimed that the victim was 14 years old and was a school student in the Elgin school at the time Mohammad Saleem invited her into his office.
It “began to touch the victim’s legs” and, at later points, “touched the victim’s breasts” and vagina, as per court documents.
“Between Sept. 1 of 2001 and Aug. 31 of 2003, on 10 to 15 separate but similar incidents in the defendant’s office, the defendant would have the victim sit on his lap” while being aroused and agitated, according to records.
Lantz claimed in court that between August. 1st, 2001, from Jun. 1, 2002, she notified an educator of the School School situation, “but nothing was done.”
As of 2003, reports indicate the suspect could move out of the city.
A second victim, aged 22 years old and employed by the School School time, was repeatedly groped and sexually assaulted at the hands of Mohammad Saleem, who also is popularly known by the name Abdullah Saleem, records show.
In one incident that occurred in April of 2014, Mohammad Saleem walked into the victim’s office “and locked the door behind him,” Lantz claimed in the court. “The defendant requested that the victim be seated on his lap; however, the victim refused.
“The defendant put both hands upon the hips of the victim, pulled her towards the chair, and placed the victim on his back. His defendant massaged his victim’s chest using his hands. The victim tried to climb out of the chair, but the defendant resorted to force to hold her. The defendant lifted the victim’s gown, her abaya, and dress with his hands, then grabbed her hips, and then turned her back so that she was facing him.”
The woman took off.
Then, the semen in her pants was linked to Mohammad Saleem, court records reveal.
He could have been sentenced to fourteen years or more in jail, but the plea deal did not include prison time.
The lawsuit also alleges that another school employee, who is not named, molested the 11-year-old boy who, following the alleged incident, “could not locate any IIE staff to assist him and to help him call his parents.” Therefore, the plaintiff “had to climb through the ceiling tiles of the locked office where there was the only telephone available for students to call their parents; his mother removed him from IIE the next day.”
It’s not clear if there was ever any criminal investigation into that claim of abuse in 1996, according to records.
Sulaiman Saleem won’t identify the school employee, but he says that the School no longer employs him, Schoolition saying, “I don’t [know] much about the allegations.”
Eman Hassaballa Aly Social worker Eman Hassaballa Aly advocated for several accusers and expressed displeasure with how the School School dealt with Mohammad Saleem.
“It’s [like] they’re putting a sex offender on a pedestal,” Aly claims. “His home isn’t too far away from School. Schools are not taking the safety of students first.
“Either they don’t believe he did those things, or they know and don’t care.”
Sarwar affirms that a positive thing that came out of the investigation is it was that Muslim parents are made conscious of sexual abuse in this Islamic community, where traditionally there was “blind trust” and reverence for the religious leaders.
In recent years, many reports of abuse have come out from Islamic schools in other countries as well, and child sexual abuse lawsuits are currently pending against the Muslim School located in Buffalo, according to records.
“The good thing is this blew open this” issue of child sexual assault “in our community,” Sarwar declares. “We opened the eyes that it does happen; it’s in our community, too.”
