The Book of Khalid

AMEEN RIHANI
was born in 1876 in Freike, in what is now Lebanon. He was one of six children, and his father was a silk manufacturer. At age 11 Rihani moved to New York, where his father and uncle became merchants. He worked for them for nine years, while teaching himself English by reading major European and American writers. In 1897 he was sent back to Lebanon to recover from illness, and there became familiar with the Arabic poets. His translation of Abul-Ala Al-Ma’arri would be Rihani’s first English publication, in 1903. Soon thereafter he commenced a six-year period of living in isolation in the Lebanese mountains, during which he published extensively in Arabic—including fiction, non-fiction, drama, and notably introducing free verse to Arabic poetry. He wrote
The Book of Khalid
, the first Arab-American novel, during this period, in English. Returning to New York, in 1916 he married Bertha Case, an American artist. He became active politically, counseling Theodore Roosevelt on Palestine and representing Arab interests at the Hague. His late books
Around the Coasts of Arabia
(1930) and
Arabian Peak and Desert
(1931) were extremely successful in the US and Europe and provided a new perspective of the Arab world for Western audiences. Rihani died in his hometown, Freike, on September 13
^th
1940, at the age of 64, from complications following a bicycle accident.

KAHLIL GIBRAN
(1883–1931) was born in Lebanon but emigrated with his family to Boston in 1895 and was educated in Beirut and in Paris. In 1923 he published
The Prophet
, one of the best-selling books of the century.

TODD FINE
is the founder and director of Project Khalid, a campaign to celebrate
The Book of Khalid’
s centennial and to advance Rihani’s reputation as an important Arab-American figure.

I was by no means the only reader of books on board the
Neversink.
Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much
. —
HERMAN MELVILLE,
WHITE JACKET

IN THE KHEDIVIAL LIBRARY OF CAIRO, AMONG the Papyri of the Scribe of Amen-Ra and the beautifully illuminated copies of the Korân, the modern Arabic Manuscript which forms the subject of this Book, was found. The present Editor was attracted to it by the dedication and the rough drawings on the cover; which, indeed, are as curious, if not as mystical, as ancient Egyptian symbols. One of these is supposed to represent a New York Skyscraper in the shape of a Pyramid, the other is a dancing group under which is written: “The Stockbrokers and the Dervishes.” And around these symbols, in Arabic circlewise, these words:—“
And this is my Book, the Book of Khalid, which I dedicate to my Brother Man, my Mother Nature, and my Maker God
.”

Needless to say we asked at once the Custodian of the Library to give us access to this Book of Khalid, and after examining it, we hired an amanuensis to make a copy for us. Which copy we subsequently used as the warp of our material; the woof we shall speak of in the following chapter. No, there is nothing in this Work which we can call ours, except it be the Loom. But the weaving, we assure the Reader, was a mortal process; for the material is of such a mixture that here and there the raw silk of Syria is often spun with the cotton
and wool of America. In other words, the Author dips his antique pen in a modern inkstand, and when the ink runs thick, he mixes it with a slabbering of slang. But we started to write an Introduction, not a Criticism. And lest we end by writing neither, we give here what is more to the point than anything we can say: namely, Al-Fatihah, or the Opening Word of Khalid himself.

With supreme indifference to the classic Arabic proem, he begins by saying that his Book is neither a Memoir nor an Autobiography, neither a Journal nor a Confession.

“Orientals,” says he, “seldom adventure into that region of fancy and fabrication so alluring to European and American writers; for, like the eyes of huris, our vanity is soft and demure. This then is a book of travels in an impalpable country, an enchanted country, from which we have all risen, and towards which we are still rising. It is, as it were, the chart and history of one little kingdom of the Soul,—the Soul of a philosopher, poet and criminal. I am all three, I swear, for I have lived both the wild and the social life. And I have thirsted in the desert, and I have thirsted in the city: the springs of the former were dry; the water in the latter was frozen in the pipes. That is why, to save my life, I had to be an incendiary at times, and at others a footpad. And whether on the streets of knowledge, or in the open courts of love, or in the parks of freedom, or in the cellars and garrets of thought and devotion, the only
saki
that would give me a drink without the asking was he who called himself Patience.…

“And so, the Book of Khalid was written. It is the only one I wrote in this world, having made, as I said, a brief sojourn in its civilised parts. I leave it now where I wrote it, and I hope to write other books in other worlds. Now understand, Allah keep and guide thee, I do not leave it here
merely as a certificate of birth or death. I do not raise it up as an epitaph, a trade-sign, or any other emblem of vainglory or lucre; but truly as a propylon through which my race and those above and below my race, are invited to pass to that higher Temple of mind and spirit. For we are all tourists, in a certain sense, and this world is the most ancient of monuments. We go through life as those pugreed-solar-hatted-Europeans go through Egypt. We are pestered and plagued with guides and dragomans of every rank and shade;—social and political guides, moral and religious dragomans: a Tolstoy here, an Ibsen there, a Spencer above, a Nietzche below. And there thou art left in perpetual confusion and despair. Where wilt thou go? Whom wilt thou follow?