Qur’an 4:34 Alert: he said, she said. Update on this story: “Wife of imam tells of persistent abuse: His representatives say her story is full of lies and is one-sided,” by Jason Bergreen and Jessica Ravitz in The Salt Lake Tribune, with thanks to LHK:
Apparently angry with how his dinner was prepared, Imam Shuaib-ud Din on Jan. 2 punched and kicked his wife and beat her head against a freezer until the door broke, the woman alleged in a petition for a protective order.
The next day, the imam – the recently fired religious leader of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake – threw a kitchen knife at her and threatened to kill her, according to a petition for a temporary protective order filed last week by Ayesha Siddiqa Din.
The order, signed by 3rd District Judge John Paul Kennedy on Jan. 16, requires that the imam not contact his wife. It also requires him to stay away from their home and that he may not take his two children out of Utah, among other restrictions.
The allegations of abuse – and the Islamic Society board’s reaction to them – have sparked a schism in the Muslim community, with many members criticizing the way the board has handled the situation.
Shuaib-ud Din was not available for comment Monday. But a family representative in Chicago, where he has taken refuge, insisted that while there were marital concerns, the allegations in his wife’s petition are “lies,” inherently one-sided and do not tell the whole story.