Islamic law and ethics require us to do everything in our power to protect children and help bring their abusers to justice, even when these abusers happen to be respected community leaders and teachers.
The recent arrest and consequent indictment of prominent Texas imam, Quran teacher, and AlMaghrib Institute instructor Wisam Sharieff on multiple child sexual exploitation charges have ignited a firestorm within the Muslim American community and kick-started an important discussion relating to religious teachings, ethics and community accountability.
Many, including leading scholars and representatives of prominent institutions, responded to the harrowing allegations and damning evidence put forward by the FBI rightly by acknowledging that abuse and exploitation affect our community like any other, and emphasising the importance of improving child safeguarding in all contexts and settings.
Yet still, so many among us either outright refused to believe such crimes could have been committed by a prominent Quran teacher employed by a reputable national Muslim institution, or attempted to shut down the conversation on the matter in a misguided effort to “protect the community and the image of Islam”.
Unfortunately, many critical communal conversations in the wake of Sharieff’s indictment were misdirected or shut down on the basis of misinterpretations and misapplications of Islamic teachings and ethics. As such, there is a need to take a deeper look at some of the most common arguments used to stifle discussion of child sex abuse in the Muslim community:
‘Sins should be concealed’
Upon hearing the allegations about Sharieff, many in the community rushed to remind those talking about the shocking news that “sins should be concealed”. This is a refrain to which we keep returning every time a religious leader is accused of misconduct, abuse, or even violence, often to stifle critical discussions and accountability.
Yes, it is true that “sin concealment” is an important religious principle. However, jurists maintain that only the “private” sins of the generality of believers and religious leaders – such as eating pepperoni pizza – should be concealed.
Like most religious principles, sin concealment in Islam is balanced against other principles, as Mairaj Syed shows in his research paper about concealing the sins of religious leaders. Removing harm, forbidding wrong, prosecuting crimes, and public accountability of leaders definitively take precedence over sin concealment.
This means that sins committed by leaders that result in harm to others or undermine the moral integrity required of a community steward – such as sexual abuse of children – must be exposed, and immediate steps taken to remove harm and prevent its recurrence. This might include criminal or civil prosecution, firing, deplatforming, issuing public statements to the community, and whatever other steps are necessary to ensure that the harm ceases, and the offender is prevented from repeating the offence.
‘Avoid discussing this, as it amounts to gossip’
Whenever an accusation of abuse is made against a respected teacher or community leader, verses of the Quran warning against slander and rumour-mongering – such as the one revealed on the occasion of the slander of our Mother Aisha (Q. 24:15-16) – are invoked by some to stifle communal discussion, the circulation of warnings against an individual, and even solution-oriented debate among leaders. We have seen this happen again in relation to the investigation into the alleged abuse of Sharieff.
Sometimes, this approach is motivated by understandable concerns that public discussion of the scandals within our faith community will be weaponised by Islamophobes. Yet, there are several problems with this approach.
First and foremost, secrecy, concealment of abuse, and lack of transparency are root causes that facilitate perpetrators’ continued violation of others. Second, when a fact-based, trauma-informed, and expert-led discussion is stifled, rumours and misinformation inevitably spread to fill that vacuum instead. Third, warnings against abusers are necessary to remove immediate harm, educate the community, hold abusers to account, and ensure that they do not reoffend.
‘Innocent until proven guilty’
Default non-liability is, of course, an important principle of Islamic law. Every individual should indeed be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But this does not mean the accused individual should enjoy impunity and continue with their influential role within the community while claims against them are being investigated.
In fact, in the face of such serious accusations, our Islamic oversight and accountability system teaches us to suspend the individual from duty while the complaint is investigated.
“When it comes to individuals holding public positions of power and authority, the Islamic tradition is quite clear on the steps to be taken when there is an accusation of abuse of power [rather than personal wrongdoing],” explained Ingrid Mattson in her 2024 paper “Accountability in the Islamic Tradition“. The principle to be upheld in such an instance is not, “innocent until proven guilty”, she wrote, but rather, “suspended until investigated”. “This is a widespread, perhaps universal administrative practice … We have many reports of [the caliph] Umar doing this with his governors, judges and military leaders,” explains Mattson.
So, while “innocent until proven guilty” directs us not to punish an individual until due process is complete, “suspension until investigation” is the interim obligation when complaints of abuse of power are made. Think of this approach as an enactment of harm removal: While inquiries are made and investigation is under way, the possibility of the accused harming others requires their temporary removal from office, to be reinstated and cleared of wrongdoing in the future should they be proven innocent.
‘Abuse can’t happen in our community because …’
Since the revelations about Sharieff’s alleged conduct, many have clearly been struggling to believe such abuse could have taken place within our community, let alone been perpetrated by a respected Quran teacher. This is a common and understandable response when a revered leader or teacher with impeccable scholarly credentials who is part of a tight-knit community is accused of such crimes.
In our theology, however, only prophets are infallible or divinely protected from sin, not the awliya (saints) and righteous, and certainly not their followers. Countless spiritual authorities have warned that those believed to be righteous saints can fall into major sins, or worse, become corrupt. The moment we start thinking that this cannot happen in our community is the moment we become more prone to either being abused, being complicit in situations of abuse, or becoming abusers ourselves (may God protect us). This is an important reminder to scholarly and spiritual communities that believe they are protected from having abuse occur within them because they have isnad/a wali or saintly shaykh/idhn (permission to teach or guide others).
Spiritual theology aside, we have already seen multiple cases of abuse happen in communities with all of these attributes, and abuse carried out by individuals who had solid scholarly credentials. So we cannot afford to keep clinging to the illusion that abuse cannot occur in our community or group. No individual, community, or religious current is protected from falling into spiritual abuse, and believing this to be the case sets the exact conditions for abuse to take place.
‘Free mixing and liberal/feminist ideas are to blame’
Much of the Muslim discussion on the allegations directed at Sharieff has tried to blame the problem on “free mixing”, “liberalism” or “feminism” in the community. On this assessment, the solutions proposed are the “proper” covering of women, gender segregation in Muslim spaces, and women teaching only women and men teaching only men.
Whatever your position on the above-listed issues, experts on child abuse tell us that they are completely irrelevant to protecting children. Raising concerns like these as preventive measures against child sexual abuse obfuscates the real issues at hand, misdirects our community, and often devolves into victim blaming. This mindset serves to shift attention away from the wrongdoer’s accountability, creating a culture that excuses or minimises harmful behaviour by suggesting that the victim could have or should have acted differently to avoid the harm.
The facts of the matter are that: child sexual abuse occurs even in the most conservative and segregated societies; boys are abused in these communities as well (an estimated one in 20 or 25 boys before the age of 18); and 90 percent of abuse is perpetrated by someone known and trusted by the child or child’s family members.
Keeping these facts in mind, we must refrain from offering solutions to child sexual abuse that experts in that field tell us are ineffectual in prevention, suggesting that sexual abuse of minors could not happen in the community if we simply abide by Islamic gender norms of interaction, or implying that victims could have behaved differently to prevent the abuse they suffered.
We all have a role to play in preventing abuse
It is high time to stop ignoring the problem, shutting down discussion and passing the blame, and instead begin developing empirically informed, Islamically framed and victim-focused safeguarding and abuse prevention strategies to protect the vulnerable.
Religious scholars and institutions have an important role to play in preventing the sexual exploitation of children in our communities and ensuring alleged abusers are brought to justice. Scholars must see it as their duty to raise awareness and educate the community about religious teachings and legal principles relevant to spiritual abuse and sexual violence.
Institutions, meanwhile, must go beyond general denouncement of perpetrators of abuse and begin developing specific policies to prevent abuse. These must be developed in collaboration with subject matter experts to ensure they are informed by best practices grounded in research and practice while remaining in harmony with Islamic principles.
Indeed, addressing the sexual exploitation of children requires expertise beyond the scope of our religious scholars and institutional leaders. Preventing such harm calls for the knowledge and guidance of experts trained in sexual violence, whose empirically grounded best practices must inform our safeguarding measures.
Sexual health education is the key to this prevention. Clear, age-appropriate, expert-driven education can teach children and families about boundaries, bodily autonomy, and recognising inappropriate behaviour. This education can and should be framed, with support from religious scholars, within an Islamic context that emphasises the sanctity and dignity of each person. Such an education based on sexual health and abuse prevention and following Islamic guidance would not only empower individuals with knowledge but also foster a community-wide culture of protection and mutual respect. But the responsibility does not lie solely with leaders, experts and institutions either.
Every adult has a safeguarding duty for children they come into contact with: in their immediate and extended family, community, or workplace. So each one of us must learn and implement the essentials of safeguarding. We should also learn what questions should be deferred to religious authorities, what is better addressed by counsellors and therapists, and what should be reported immediately and directly to authorities.
Finally, we should not place any religious leader on a pedestal. We should, of course, reverence the hallmarks of religion and have a good opinion of its carriers, but must not absolve ourselves of moral responsibility before God. Every one of us must do everything in our power to ensure abusers – whatever their credentials – are dismissed from positions of community leadership. We must all work to change the discourse in the community, so that shame falls only on the perpetrator and never on the victim, especially when the victim is a helpless child.