From D Magazine
In August of 2017, Alia Salem and Huma Yasin decided to launch something for Muslim parishioners to go for help. They’d seen enough. An imam in Irving had been accused of “sexually grooming” an 18-year-old congregant, beginning when she was 13. He was fired by the Islamic Center of Irving, one of the largest mosques in Texas, but had been recently hired by the Grand Prairie Islamic Society. He got the job despite his previous mosque having sent a letter to 2,000 institutions urging them to stay away. And yet, he found a new position just miles away.
This spiritual abuse—when an imam, sheikh, or a Muslim uses their power to harass, assault, or otherwise manipulate a member of the community—is rarely discussed, and victims and their families have few resources after it happens to them. And so Salem and Yasin set about changing that. They launched a nonprofit called Facing Abuse in Community Environments, or FACE, which helps survivors work through their experience and connects them with services like counseling and even the police—so long as the victims are welcoming of a criminal investigation.
“We are collectively trying to become the best people we can be. That’s what I hope we are moving toward,” Salem says. “Our community is tired. They feel beat down. They feel dejected, used, and unsafe, like many minorities and marginalized communities in the U.S.”
For the past 14 years, Salem, an Egyptian-American, has been an organizational developer and social justice organizer for Muslims in the Dallas area. She was previously the executive director at CAIR-DFW, the Council of American Islamic Relations, and is the founder of the Dallas Palestine Action Committee. She helps organize REAL City in Dallas, a bi-annual event where millennial professionals come together with intersectional activists to learn about race, equity, action, and leadership.
Yasin, meanwhile, is an Oklahoma-native who has lived in Dallas for the past 13 years. She is a Pakistani attorney, practicing international humanitarian law, and a writer with work in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Hill. She is currently writing a book recreating the Fort Dix Five sting, which details FBI overreach in Muslim communities. They first met in 2012 when a tornado hit Arlington and an organization Salem was working for at the time helped clean up Yasin’s demolished home. Since then, they have been very close friends.
