That taboo treatment of sexuality is especially true in the more orthodox circles of the South Asian community that looked to Saleem for guidance. Saleem was part of an initial wave of Muslim immigrants from India and Pakistan who settled in the Chicago area in the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike many other Chicago imams in the Sunni tradition, he had formal training and hailed from the Deobandi school of thought, a fundamentalist movement based in India. While the boarding school he founded for students in fifth through 12th grades offers secular courses for children whose families want a more sheltered environment, it primarily trains students to memorize the Quran.