Mohammad Mustafa Popal wears a felt cap with the brim low over his forehead and a gray sweater with a leopard printed on it in black. Walking through the quad on the way to his office, he salutes a passing student with a friendly fist bump. His gold-rimmed wayfarer shades come off as he holds the double doors of Building 2 open, letting a female student enter first.

Popal, a history professor in his first year at Skyline, has an unusual name. He was born in Afghanistan to a liberal-minded, academic father and a mother who had royal blood. They escaped Afghanistan with their newborn after the Soviet army invaded in 1979. First they fled to Pakistan, then Iran, where Popal almost died of cholera, and then Germany. Finally, the family joined the refugee Afghan community in Concord, where Popal was raised.

Islam wore off on Popal by middle school, but the secular influence of Afghan culture left a mark that transcended religion.

“Growing up, in family parties, the men would get together, and all they talked about was politics,” Popal said.

He compares the spirit of the dinnertime debates in his household to incantatory rap battles. Men whose minds were full of memorized poems would leap into quotations to justify their points.

“When the debate came to a deadlock, you’d start throwing down poems,” he said.

Popal found his own set of poet-philosophers in the tradition of American rap music. He was given an LL Cool J tape in 5th grade that blew his mind. From then on, he revered the fiery vocal displays and“syrupy” beats of rap. They made him feel American.

His education in social science continued on two tracks from childhood through adulthood, with his beloved “philosophers of the urban American reality” rapping into one ear, and endlessly less interesting teachers droning into the other. Often, the two would clash, forcing him to compare what he was learning from hip hop artists with the classroom version of history.

He started his college career on course to obtain a family approved business administration degree. After a class on protest movements of the 1960’s awakened his multiple loves, he realized his calling as a scholar of American history.

“History is the study of change,”he said. “I remember how I perceived my professors; really, their entire being in my mind was their teaching. I try to be a model of interconnectedness. I try to connect what I’m teaching in the classroom to how it affects us as a society.”

So far, the campus community has embraced his unique approach. One Skyline student, Hilary Wong, described Popal as a “passionate instructor.”

Dean of Social Sciences Donna Bestock lauded him as an “innovative teacher, full of energy and enthusiasm.”

“Students vote with their feet,” she said, “and his classes filled immediately.”

Popal’s classes invite moving, personal discussions about the open wounds of American history. In his office, the books and papers share real estate with a small collection of collectible rap records. Visitors to his office often enter with the sounds of Popal’s favorite hip-hop artists playing in their ears.