Longtime beloved Salam School teacher retires

Photos courtesy of Khadijah Mohammad-Yagham

Khadijah Mohammad-Yagham, known to generations of students as “Sister Khadijah,” pictured above at her daughter Alaa Shareef’s wedding in 2019, taught at Salam School in Milwaukee for 29 years.

When Islamic Society of Milwaukee imam Ameer Hamza joined Salam School as an 8th grader in the middle of the 2000-2001 school year, he got the “Sr. Khadijah treatment.”

Hamza had just moved to the United States, felt a little insecure and was trying to fit in, he recalled. “She really treated me like her own son. She’d always tell me she was proud of me. I felt not only comfortable but gained a higher sense of self-esteem. She’d make you feel like you’re someone who’s going to be able to make it.” 

He soon learned his beloved Quran and Arabic teacher made every student that way.

“She always makes you feel so special, said Hanan Kaloti, a fellow teacher during the 2023-24 school year, Khadijah Mohammad-Yaghnam’s last year teaching at Salam School. “Of course, you know she makes everybody feel super, super special.”

Sr. Khadijah, as everyone calls her, has taught hundreds, maybe over a thousand, students in her more than four-decade career. In the summer, the 70-year-old mother of four and grandmother of two retired from Salam School, where she taught Quran and Arabic for 29 years. Her biggest impact, many say, was making every student feel worthy and loved.

“She’s taught generations of students,” Salam School Islamic Studies teacher Ibtihaj Oweisi noted. Sr. Khadijah taught some of Oweisi’s children and grandchildren. “And even if they weren’t in her class, she was every student’s morality teacher,” teaching by example, Oweisi added.

Sr. Khadijah recently moved to New York to be near one of her four daughters and her family. She will always hold a special place in Milwaukee’s Muslim community, ISM director Othman Atta said. 

“Sr. Khadijah has been a long-time member of the community who dedicated her life to educating others, particularly younger children,” said Atta. “She is known and respected by the students of Salam School for her sincerity, love and commitment.

“It is also important to note that, despite the challenges she faced, including being a single mother for many years, Sr. Khadijah raised beautiful, well-mannered, highly-educated and activist daughters who make us proud,” he added.

The ISM and Sr. Khadijah’s daughters are planning “a recognition, retirement, bon voyage party” to be held when Sr. Khadijah next visits Milwaukee. ISM will announce the date and time when they are confirmed, Atta said.

Born to teach

Sr. Khadijah’s love for the Quran led her to become a teacher, she told WMJ in a recent interview over Zoom from her daughter Alaa Shareef’s home in New York. When she was a young girl in a village near Jerusalem, she loved to listen to the Quran and to recite it. “I read it and I feel closer to Allah. That’s why I decided to major in Quran and Quranic Arabic in college,” she said.

Her family moved to Amman, Jordan, “forced out by the occupation in 1967, when I was 12,” she recalled. She went to high school and college in Amman.

One of her college professors told her, “You are a born teacher,” Sr. Khadijah said. “That planted the seed.” Once she started teaching, she found she loved her students and felt eager to share her love of the Quran with them, she added.

Before becoming a full-time teacher in Salam School, Sr. Khadijah taught for 13 years in Jordan (where she also served as principal of a K-6 school), a private preparatory school in Greenfield and in the Islamic Society of Milwaukee’s Friday, Sunday and summer schools.

In her first teaching position, she was hired as both a teacher and the principal of a school in Jordan. “Fortunately, my brother-in-law was a principal and could help me learn the duties of a principal,” she said.

“I was so proud of myself when the supervisor of education observed my work and told me I had done a very good job with everything,” she recalled. “It encouraged me to do more.”

After five years on the outskirts of Amman, she moved to a large elementary school in the heart of Jordan’s capital, closer to home, where she had the opportunity to teach Quranic Arabic. She taught at two schools in Amman before moving to the United States in 1988.

After a year and a half in New Jersey, she divorced and she moved with her four daughters to Milwaukee, to be close to her family. “My youngest was just three days old,” she said.

“I didn’t drive so the first thing I did was ask my father to take me to the masjid,” she remembered. “It’s a blessing for me and my kids to come to the ISM and meet people from different countries—from Pakistan, from Arabic countries, from India. I enjoyed being with them. They made me forget my situation. The ladies got together to work on memorization (of the Quran) and just enjoy being together. They became my friends. And my girls enjoyed being with their girls.”

Sister Khadijah is known for teaching correct Quranic Arabic pronunciation and finding fun ways to motivate students. She and colleagues organized Salam School’s annual Quran memorization competition.

Sr. Khadijah doesn’t know quite how it happened but soon after she arrived in Milwaukee, the principal of a private preparatory school called her and said, “I hear you are an Arabic teacher. Can you please come interview for a position teaching Arabic as a foreign language? I need a language teacher.”

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh, God, if he asks me anything, I won’t be able to answer in English.’ The next day, I went to the school and he told me to go to the class and start teaching. I did and it made me very happy. To this day, I do not know who gave him my name.”

Sr. Khadijah taught there every Friday for one year before she decided to move closer to the ISM, where her daughters would go to Sunday school. “Salam School did not even exist yet,” she said.

Later she began volunteering at Salam School and started teaching Quran in her home. She also volunteered with programs at the ISM, including Friday, Sunday and summer schools. The ISM became her family, she said.

Sr. Khadijah began teaching at Salam School in 1996. A neighbor of hers knew the principal and others at Salam School and told them about her. The school was small in the beginning; students of varying ages were put in four levels based on their ability to read, write and speak Arabic. Sr. Khadijah began teaching in the lower levels, but soon taught higher levels as her ability was recognized by the early administrator, Abu Al Hakam, her daughter Alaa said. 

She recalled taking time in class to make sure students understood their homework assignments well. “Many of their parents didn’t know Arabic and wouldn’t be able to help them at home,” she said, explaining that Salam School families are from diverse backgrounds.

She called her students “my angels.” She believed in giving them freedom to think for themselves and ask questions. Her goal was to encourage them to develop their own love for the Quran and Allah, and to develop a strong Muslim identity, she said.

“My mother offered her students time and space to ask questions about the religion, to really understand and grasp the power of Allah and how He could be present in their lives,” Alaa said. 

With younger children, Sr. Khadijah asked, “Do you love your mother?”

When they answered, “Yes,” she asked, “Why?”  They usually said something like “because she takes care of me.”

“Who do you think gave you your mother to take care you? It was Allah. Allah loves you so much.”

She also demonstrated love. Alaa recalled growing up seeing her mother carefully going through students’ notebooks in the evenings, correcting each one and writing personal notes of encouragement. She’d spend hours putting together class activities or baking Arabic desserts for Salam School events, she added. 

“She gave so much time and attention to the schoolwork, but we still had home-cooked meals,” Alaa said with a laugh. “I was fortunate to have a mother that put the same amount of love into making a great meal as she did in her classroom.” She recalled how her mother taught her daughters to cook traditional Palestinian dishes, while also nurturing a love of learning in them.

“She sacrificed a lot for her students and her children,” Alaa said.

Some of Sr. Khadijah’s happiest memories are of students coming back to visit after graduation. Two of her students had married and came to introduce their son. Many who returned to see her were 7 or 8 when she taught them and “now they are all grown,” Sr. Khadijah said.

“I’m crying a lot now because I spent 35 or 36 years in Milwaukee, in this beautiful community,” Sr. Khadijah said. “We taught as a team with the same goal. I’ve seen the school grow so much and it makes me happy. I love them. I love Salam School.

“I’m so happy and proud I have been teaching Quran my whole life,” she added. 

Islamic Studies teachers celebrated the 2015 Haj at a school event. Before a poster of the Ka’aba, from left to right, are Amal Haidar, Farheen Hussaini, Khadijah Mohammad-Yaghnam and Khawla Asmar (Salam Elementary School principal).

A mutual love

“I really saw my mom pour her heart into her work,” Alaa said. “When she talks about how she really loves her students, it’s genuine. And they love her, too.

“I recall so many times when we would be in community events and her students would run to her and hug her, she said. “As her daughter, I was one of her first students. She brings her tenderness into the classroom. I worked alongside her at Salam School for about a year. I remember passing her in the hallways and seeing her with this giddy smile on her face. She’d have energy all day long for those kids.”

Alaa Shareef (left), shown with her mother Sr. Khadijah (right) adopted her mother’s custom of wearing green, “the color of Jannah (heaven),” on Friday, Muslims’ holy day. 

Sr. Khadijah’s colleague Ibtihaj Oweisi described her as “a sincere person, a hard worker, a great mom and teacher. She gives her heart to her work.

“She had a big impact on my kids’ Arabic,” she added. “And she’s been a mother to so many children in the school.” 

Oweisi’s daughter Faiqa, a speech pathologist, now a full-time mom in Oak Creek, said, “Sr. Khadijah was very kind as a teacher and truly cared about her students. One thing I remember was how she taught her students to clearly enunciate the letters when reading the Quran. She taught her students that changing the slightest sound in the word changed its meaning. 

“Sr. Khadijah was also my son’s Arabic and Quran teacher just last year. Mohammad was in K4 at the time. My son loved her class and constantly talked about her. She allowed him to be competitive in class and challenged him to rise to his potential. She was great at motivating my son to continue memorizing the Quran. 

“During my last encounter with Sr. Khadijah, she told me that I should recognize the hard work that I put in my son because it’s apparent in her class. As a mom, I really appreciated her saying that.”

“Sr. Khadijah has always been a special teacher,” said Faiqa’s sister, Seema Oweisi, a nurse who lives in Franklin. “My earliest memory of her is from first grade, where she encouraged us to do our best. I also remember she would emphasize on correct pronunciation especially while reading Quran. She gave each child her attention making sure every kid in class had a one-on-one interaction with her. 

“Sr. Khadijah truly saw her career as a trust to teach children the Quran. She set a standard of care and dedication that stayed with me. When my son joined her class years later, it was like reliving those memories. I saw a remarkable difference in the way he recited Quran, and I felt so at peace knowing he was in her hands. She often told me how much she loved him and always had something positive to say.” 

“My son was so excited to learn she had been my teacher too—it was such a full-circle moment for our family. At every conference, Sr. Khadijah beamed with pride as she showed us his progress. Her love for teaching and her students was undeniable. We will miss having her in our school dearly and cherish everything she gave us.”

“Long after I left Salam School, when I moved on to high school at MPS, I would run into her and she was always congratulating me, telling me she was proud of me,” said Imam Ameer. “And when I started giving Friday sermons, she was there cheering me on. She makes you feel like a million bucks. Beyond that, she is a tireless Arabic teacher and a very warmhearted, caring person.”

What’s next?

In New York, Sr. Khadijah plans to continue her teaching alongside her own Quran memorization. “I don’t want to fully retire; I love to teach,” Sr. Khadijah told WMJ. “I’m not going to be sitting at home.”

She is lining up students from the many homeschoolers in New York’s Muslim community, Alaa reported. She has just moved to New York and “she already has a long list of students.”

Wherever she goes, many from the Milwaukee Muslim community will think of her with gratitude and have her in their prayers. 

“She spent years teaching generations the language of the holy Quran. May it weigh heavily on her scale of good deeds. May Allah SWT reward her for all the years,” said Seema Oweisis.

“May Allah bless her and keep her in strong health, and grant her a lot of joy,” Imam Ameer Hamza said.