The MA did not require any coursework or residence in England as per the "Cambridge MA" system, whereby holders of a BA may obtain an MA after five years and the payment of a fee. In 1952 Jabra converted to Sunni Islam in order to marry Lami'a Barqi al-'Askari.[9] The same year, he received a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, arranged personally by John Marshall, to study English literature and literary criticism at Harvard University.[10] While at Harvard between the fall of 1952 and January 1954, Jabra studied under Archibald MacLeish.[11] In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jabra translated his first novel, Cry in a Long Night, from English into Arabic and began writing his second novel, Hunters in a Narrow Street (1960).[12]