‘Jarring and sickening’: North Texas Quran instructor arrested in child sexual abuse case
A North Texas imam and Quran instructor has been arrested and accused of exploiting religion to manipulate a woman into making videos of sexual abuse of her child, court documents state.
Wisam Sharieff, of Euless, is accused of instructing an Alabama woman to produce sexually explicit videos of her daughter for him, according to a criminal complaint filed in Alabama federal court by the FBI.
A woman identifying herself as Sharieff’s wife notified authorities on Oct. 15 that she’d seen videos on Sharieff’s phone of a little girl watching adult pornography. The child’s mother was explaining the sexual acts to her, the complaint states.
The caller said she’d also found messages in the Telegram app between Sharieff and the mother where he instructed her to record videos of the abuse and send them to him, according to the complaint.
The caller said she recognized the girl and the mother from having met them at a conference.
Investigators with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama followed up on the tip and arrested the mother the same day on a charge of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years of age, officials said in a news release.
The mother now faces two additional counts of sexual abuse of a child, 10 counts of production of child pornography and 10 counts of dissemination of child pornography, according to the release. The woman is being held on a nearly $2 million bond and additional charges are expected.
The mother told investigators that Sharieff was her online Quran instructor. He told her that certain sexual activities “would help her spiritually and allow her to communicate with Allah,” the complaint against the imam states. She wanted the child to “become closer to Allah as well.”
According to the complaint, the mother produced videos of herself and the child performing sexual acts on themselves. She then sent the videos to Sharieff so he “could guide them and let them know how far they were progressing on their quest to become closer to Allah.”
Sharieff has been charged with one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography. He was arrested in North Texas on Oct. 30 and will be prosecuted in Alabama.
Al Maghrib, the Islamic education institute where Sharieff served as an online Quran instructor, said in a statement that the 43-year-old imam has been fired from his position.
“This criminal allegation against Wisam (Sharieff) is a jarring and sickening experience for his students as well as AlMaghrib Institute’s staff and instructors who worked with him,” the statement reads.
