BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. (CBS) — Over the past eight months, local Arab American and Muslim communities have suffered the stabbing death of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and the shooting deaths of four women from the same family.
The Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview had the difficult task of laying these loved ones to rest and helping the community through the grief. Eight months later, they are still processing it.
“Sometimes you just have to listen, sometimes you just have to encourage, sometimes you have to learn,” said Shiekh Ali Masshour, an imam at the Mosque Foundation.
These are the things Masshour has learned over the past twenty years as an imam. But when he first started practicing, he didn’t know the gift could become a challenge.
“It’s a shock to the system at first, but after a while you’ll learn not to fix everything. Don’t be the hero in everything. You just have to be there. Offer what you can,” he says. said.
He learned to be present as a servant of Allah, the term used in Islam for “God,” while also learning how to conduct funerals for families who have suffered a loss.
“This is certainly the mosque that has the most funerals that I have ever seen because the community is so tightly packed,” Masshour said.
Two funerals in the past year left the community scarred.
“The heaviest loads are usually the lightest in terms of physical weight,” he said, referring to the death of six-year-old Wadee Al-Fayoumi.
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“Tragedy compounded by another tragedy”
Masshour said the boy’s death was “certainly probably the most emotionally charged” because of the story and the way it happened and the victim.
On October 14, 2023, the little boy was allegedly stabbed 26 times by his landlord Joseph Czuba in his Plainfield Township apartment. His mother was left injured. In his confession, Czuba told police that he attacked them because they were Muslim.
“If I really put this incident into the broader story of racism, this is the core of it. Anti-Palestinian hatred is a form of racism,” said Deanna Othman, a teacher at the Universal School on the same campus as the Mosque Foundation.
For months, she served as a sounding board as she still tried to heal from crippling deaths in the community, especially as a mother.
“It was really a tragedy that compounded after another tragedy, compounded again, and continues to compound,” Othman said.
The tragedy continued to build. Three months later, on the morning of January 21, Maher Kassem of Tinley Park called police.
According to police, Kassem fired sixteen shots into his home. He is said to have shot his wife Majeda seven times and his daughters Halema, Zahia and Hanaan more than once.
His 19-year-old son heard the screams but was not injured.
“Just the idea of everyone waking up on a regular Sunday morning and disagreeing about where to go for breakfast turns into a bloodbath,” Masshour said. “It makes you think a lot about what led up to that, what was going on in someone’s head.”
Court documents revealed what Maher Kassem told police. He blamed his wife for her own murder.
”She treats me like [expletive] dog. I’ve worked for 40 years’, end quote, and quote ‘I’ve worked all my life to give my family a better home and they treat me like [expletive]” Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Clark said, quoting Kassem.
Masshour said he remembered the killings “it weighed heavily on my mind for a few days. Which doesn’t happen to me very often because I’ve been so exposed to these things over the past year,” Masshour said.
Coming together in sorrow
It still weighs heavily to this day. But what comforts the Imam is the life that comes after death.
“There is an afterlife in which many of these injustices will be righted. As a Muslim, we believe in that,” Masshour said.
That knowledge gave the community strength as they entered the holy month of Ramadan, hoping for healing and peace.
“It was heartwarming to come together as a community every evening in prayer, in remembrance and charity,” Othman said.
There were somber nights when we stood in solidarity as a community, but individually the families of these victims continued to grieve in silence.
“The real emotions happen after everyone has gone home. Right? You have to go clean the bedroom or cancel doctor’s appointments and put photos away or whatever. That’s when people really need the most support, and that’s usually often the case. the most overlooked,” Masshour said.
Solemn moments brought emotion and strength to those who responded to the holy call to prayer. It is a sound that often serves as a cry for help, but also as a beautiful, yet painful reminder that acceptance is the first pillar of Islam.
“Acceptance of what is past, acceptance of what is happening,” Masshour said.
Maher Kassem, the man accused of killing his wife and daughters, faces four counts of first-degree murder and is due in court next month.
Czuba, the landlord charged with a hate crime, first-degree murder and attempted murder, will face a hearing Friday.
