Like so many first-generation Americans (sons and daughters of immigrants) Munir Shaikh says he was supposed to be a doctor. His undergraduate major was biochemistry, but what he loved was the history and humanities courses he squeezed into the premed curriculum at the University of California, Riverside. After graduation, he worked as a chemist for a year before moving to a job writing and editing for nonprofit organizations. By 1993, he was back in school part-time, but instead of science, he was accumulating the background in history and other social sciences that he would need to prepare for graduate work in Islamic Studies.

Having completed his master's degree at UCLA, Munir's change of career direction has already led to some interesting job opportunities. The flashiest was tutoring the cast of a recently released movie about the boxing legend Muhammad Ali, showing actor Will Smith, who plays the title role, how to perform prayers and recite Arabic.

But the job opportunity with the greatest impact was being teaching assistant for an overseas UCLA summer program on Islamic Iberia, a subject that had long interested him because medieval Spain carried an important part of his Muslim heritage. Islamic governments are often divided into two categories: those in which the ruler is a caliph, or universal political and religious leader of Muslims, and those in which sultans, military rulers, "appease the religious leadership in exchange for legitimacy," Munir says. The Nasrid dynasty, which ruled Granada, the last Islamic kingdom in Iberia, from 1240 to 1492, is usually put into the second group.

With time to spend in the dynasty's Alhambra palace, Munir couldn't help but notice that the Nasrid slogan, inscribed on columns and tiles and ceiling borders, was wa la ghaliba ila Allah, There is no victor except God. Islam may have played a more significant role in Granada's political ideology than previous scholars have noted, Munir believes. His dissertation research will look at how the Nasrids maintained their kingdom while caught between the proverbial rock-the Christian states in the north of Spain-and hard place-the Muslim states of North Africa. "They had a very precarious existence," Munir says. "The people in power at the time were playing a very careful game of religious legitimacy, along with protecting their geographic boundaries." A history of Granada written by its vizier (executive officer), Ibn al-Khatib, is an important resource, but Munir will look as well at al-Khatib's works on administrative practice, some of which are available only in manuscript.

Munir received the prestigious Del Amo Fellowship during his first year at UCLA, and later spent five months in Fes, Morocco, studying advanced Arabic as part of a select group of U.S. graduate students.

Now in his sixth year at UCLA, Munir is just beginning his dissertation research, in part because of the time consumed by his years as editor of Jusur, the first graduate student-run journal in Islamic Studies. When he arrived at UCLA, the previous editors were departing so they could make progress on dissertations. Now, he finds himself in the same position. Munir also served as Director of Publications for the UCLA Graduate Student Association for three consecutive years.

His adviser, Professor of History Michael Morony, says that Munir's perfectionism has also contributed to the length of his graduate career. "Nevertheless, Munir's work, once he finishes it, is superb in terms of the quality of the research and argumentation," Professor Morony says. "What impresses me most about him is his quiet seriousness, his objectivity, the intellectual honesty, and his ability to look at old issues in new ways and to identify new issues."

All of these attributes have been particularly useful in recent months, when Munir has been asked to participate in discussions, on and off campus, related to America's increased interest in the Islamic world. Looking forward to an academic career in which he will be expected to teach contemporary as well as historical courses, Munir acquired knowledge about the growth of Muslim institutions in America that has new relevance these days.

Although Muslims arrived in the New World several centuries ago-with the Spanish explorers and with African slaves-the first large, identifiably Muslim communities arose after World War II, as educated Muslims from around the world came to the United States to study and stayed to work and raise families. Munir's parents, from the state of Gujarat in India, were in that wave of immigration. While his parents' generation established the first neighborhoods and Muslim houses of worship in America, Munir's generation is moving out into the mainstream, seeking a truly Muslim American identity rather than an immigrant identity, he says.

The subject of Muslim America is not incompatible with his interest in Granada. In the Islamic kingdoms of Spain during the Middle Ages, "Muslims, Christians, and Jews created a common culture and high civilization," Munir says. "It seemed an epitome of a pluralistic society," not unlike the one in which American Muslims are making a home.

"It's important to recognize that there is no absolutely defined political structure to which Muslims have to adhere," he says. The Qur'an's vision is large enough to embrace a society that features democracy, pluralistic religious practice, and gender egalitarianism. Indeed, the Qur'an "says that Jews and Christians are 'People of the Book', and if they follow their teachings, they will be greeted by God with mercy and kindness," Munir says. In the years ahead, he believes it will be important for mainstream Muslims to "speak up and say this is the consensus of the majority."

Published in Winter 2002, Graduate Quarterly