CHAPTER III

AMEEN RIHANI (1876-1940):

THE FOUNDING FATHER OF
ARAB-AMERICAN POETRY
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CHAPTER III
AMEEN RIHANI (1876-1940): THE FOUNDING FATHER OF
ARAB-AMERICAN POETRY

Our Country is just beginning to speak,

and I am her chosen voice. I feel that if I
do not respond, if I do not come to her,
she will be dumb forever ...
(The Book of Khalid)

If there has been any writer who has taken on him the mantle of establishing
Arab-American literature in English in the West, in United States in particular, it has
been Ameen Rihani. With his poetry he brought Arab literature in English to the level
of other ethnic literatures in the United States like Indian, African or Malaysian. He
began his literary journey as an imitator of Carlyle, .an admirer of Emerson and
Renan, and became the first Arab to pursue a career as a writer in the United States.
And later, along with other poets in the mahjar Arab-American group like Khalil
Gibran and Mikhail Naimy, Rihani emerged as a pioneering figure in the early
twentieth century Arab-American literature. Not restricting himself to poetry alone, he
became the first Arab to write essays, novels, short stories, art critiques, and travel
chronicles in English. But his feat in poetry has been rare for an Arab-American
writer, except perhaps for his friend Khalil Gibran.
Rihani's decision to write in Arabic as well as in English was a conscious
decision that had great implications for the future· of Arab-American literature. This
decision raised, within the gamut of Arab-American literature, issues of biculturality,
hybridity and ethnicity. His writings and his poetry in particular determined the
emergence of a genre of writing that is "Arab in its concern, culture and
characteristics, English in language, and American in spirit and platform." ("Ameen
F. Rihani" 2)
He is considered the founding father of "Adab Al-Mahjar", the immigrant
literature ("Ameen F. Rihani" 2). His works initiated the tradition of modern Arabic
literature that eventually played an indispensable role in the emergence of the Arab
 64

literary Renaissance. His life could be summarized as an adventurous voyage

between the East and the West, particularly between Lebanon and New York. For a
period, intermittent to his settlement in the United States, he traveled widely
throughout. the entire Arab world that shaped his poetic oeuvre. His experiences of the
Arab world and the W,f:st combined to produce some wonderful poetic venture.s that
described multiculturalllsm and his dual political and cultural leanings. Consequently,
he grew to an envious position as an essayist, novelist, poet and philosopher.
Ameen Rihani ·wa~; the first Arab writer to publish a novel in English. The
Book of Khaf,id (1911) 1is based on the Syrian immigrant experience in the United
States. The book proved to be the one of his many writings, including his poems,
especially A Chant of M~§.:tics. to have inaugurated a movement towards an Odental
philosophy that seeks to unify and reconcile matter and soul, reason and faith and the
East and the West, in an attempt to explain the unity of religions and put forth the
unity of the universe. The poet considered himself as the beneficiary of the rlch
synthesis of the Christian-Muslim traditions. As an Arab-American poet, he is
acclaimed as the first in the tradition to have consciously practiced prose poetry in the
Arabic language. lnflm~nce:d by the American poet Walt Whitman, he introduced tfue
free verse to Arab poetry. )Hutaf-ul Awdiya (Hymns of the Valleys) announced the
beginning of free verse in Arab poetry. This modem form flourished i11 the Arab
world and guided modern Arab poetry throughout the 20th ctmtury. Hence, he is
credited to have revolutioniz:t!d the form of Arab poetry.
His contribution to tht! Arab history and tradition could also be assessed by his
numerous translations of the Arab writers like Imru ai-Qays and. the blind Arab po~t

ofthe tenth century Abul-Ala:\ al-Maarri into English. The latter influenced the poet's
strain of skepticism and agnosticism in poetry. Rihani's numerous books of poetry in
English include rwrtle and _tvlyrrh (1905), A Chant of Mystics (1921) and his
collection of prose poetry in lEnglish Hutaf al-Awadiyah (translated as Hymn of the
Valleys in 1955).
Among the first ge11eration ofthe (mahjar) Arab-American poets, Rihani was
the most politically active. He moved freely back and forth between the Arab world
and the United Sta~es, frequenting engaging himself in lecturing, advocating
democracy, including Ame:rican democracy and Arab freedom from the Ottoman
Empire and Turkey. His poems ,an: also suffused with the idea of connecting East and
West. This concern was limite1dl to not only his poems. In his various articles he
 65

introduced the Arab cultures and the societies of the Arab people to the American
people, especially those published in the · New York Times, Harpers, Atlantic
, Monthly, and the Nation. Also in his non-fiction The Maker of Arabia (1928), he first
wrote the history of the powerful Saud dynasty in Arabia.
His intellectual vitality was recognized in the University of Illinois, which
conferred on him an honorary doctorate in philosophy. His poems present an
alternative perspective and analytical description _of Arabia from an Arab point of
view. Rihani's position in the canon of Arab-American literature is foremost because
of his pioneering contributions to establishing literature and literary institutions by
Arabs in the United States, and also his efforts to give life to the reformation
movements incorporating social, religious and· political positions both in the Middle
East and the West, particularly between Lebanon and the United States of America.

One of Rihani's major objectives as an Arab poet writing in English was to

modernize his native tongue. He loved the Arabic language; he wished it would 'break
free of redundant and repulsive conventions while at the same time retaining its spirit.
It was Rihani's immigrant experience and his consequent acquaintance with the style
and concerns of poetry in the West that formed his poetics. However, he was not only
a practitioner. His aim was more significant than that: to help in the reformation of
Arab poetry, to make it modem, without losing the touch of the traditional elements.
Hence, he declared his commandments to the new poets in following terms:

1. Poets are urged to give up traditional topics, forms and images

and to free them~elves from the fetters that stand in the way of
creativity and renewal, and in the way of sincerity of feeling and
freedom of thought. The alternative that Rihani suggests for
poets is to extract their topics, forms and images from real life
around them, not from books.
2. Poets should "seek universal human truths through their
insightful selves .and present them through their imagination,
reminding them that the poet is both a voice and a light."
'-...

3. Poets are advised to keep a balance between their nationalist and

humanist tendencies, and to carry the torches of honor, courage,
justice. Hope and belief for their people.
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4. Poets should "keep a balance between the form and the content
telling them, when you are flying let your words be winged and
;

light, and when you are suffering or indignant extract the waves
ofyour language from melting iron."
5. Poets are asked to seek simplicity, sincerity and truthfulness in
thought, craftsmanship and imagination, and to avoid over
emotionalism, ambiguity of ideas, excessive rhetoric and
lengthy presentation.
6. A poe:m "should have a beginning and an ending and should;nat
be: one. that can be read from beginning to end and vke versa."
7. The last but foremost commandment is to stop shedding tears
b€~cause the sun, the moon and the spring are still friends of
poets and at their disposal. (Faddoul66)

Though politics and <:ulture was Rihani's major concerns as a leading Afab-
American poet,, language and form of poetry took a crucial place in his scheme of
things. This was primarily because he wanted the Arabic poetry to stand on eq~al

footing with the modern poetry of the West. Therefore, he felt the need to reform 1it ,as
urgent. The deliberate use of modern poetic features and structm~es suggest not only
his recognition of modem poetic language and style but also his belief in the mutation
in the traditional Arab:ic piGte·tic forms. "Language is a body that cannot grow witltout
new nourishment. It is a spirit, which no literature can live without. All bodies,
however, are susceptible to sickness ... " (Rihani, Excerpts from Ar-Rihani:YM 47).
However, he was acutely conscious of his diasporic identity and realities it
entailed. If be was pmud of the Arabic connection and the influence of the Arabic in
his ]language, he was also grateful to the Western masters from whom he had leamt
the nuances of poetry.
I have written in English as I have in Arabic describing the beauty of
nature in my country, and my style in the two languages differs· only
with respect to the perspective in which the subject is understood and
to some of the literary metaphors and social opinions I include in my
writing. Each language, as I have said, has its own spirit, which must
be possess€:d by whoever desires to write. And this poor man (Rihani)
thanks to the graciousness of Al-Maari and Shakespeare, has tv•o
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spirits, one of birth and one of emigration. (~ihani, Excerpts from Ar-
Rihaniyat 54)
The central themes of Rihani' s poetry are his understanding of the Self and the
Other, of the East and the West, of Nature, Man and God, Lebanon and America and
the experiences of both cultures, of national and international responsibilities of the
writer and so on and so forth. These foreground the formation of a poetic self through
the mechanism of negotiation between cultures. Not only the subjects of his poetry,
but also the diction arid imagery show an admixture and awareness of the local
traditional elements and the American elements.
. Rihani was aware of the different meanings that East and the West entailed for
him and how he had to reap the best ofthe both in his vocation as a writer. "The West
for me means ambition, the East contentment: my heart is ever in the one, my soul, in
the other", says Rihani in The Book of Khalid (241). He was aware of the larger
framework of a global culture and civilization in which love and harmony exists
between East and West. He insisted on the 'Bridges of knowledge between the East
and the West' to make possible a vision of the unity of the being. However, his
indebtedness to the West was not limited to the United States of America. For
instance, the impact of the Greek mythology on his concept of the art and the artist
'
i.e., the 'self and the 'other' was tremendous. This had an influence in his tendency
to fuse two contrasting cultures to attain a 'universal cross-cultural understanding'.
Indeed his readings of the Western culture and its influence on his life and
writings have been clearly acknowledged in the very voice that makes itself known in
his poems. The experience of immigration and the assimilation of the two cultures did
well to draw him to journalism and reforming Arab-American journalism. It was his
role as a committed journalist that fused later in his poetry his passionate faith in the
oneness of all religions and amity among all nations of the world. He took special
interest in promoting understanding between the East and the West. He was very
comfortable with his dual nationality and assimilated the two differing cultures in a
remarkable way. He had a profound grasp of the modem Western civilization and at
the same he never lost his touch with his homeland and its cultural heritage. Though
he retained a healthy respect for traditions, he opposed with all vigor blind fanaticism,
extremism and bigotry.
A Chant of Mystics occupies a major place in his Oeuvre, as it showed all
promise of the making of a great ethnic writer in the United States. By the time the
 68

coUection was published in New York in 1921, Rihani was already known in the
United States as a major philosopher and interpreter of the Arab culture ii1 the West.
The poems in this volume further confirmed such report about him as they portrayed
the details of his native place and its culture in a significant manner. The initial
responses to the po~:ms were not so different from the usual response to the life and
art of the East response and recognition of something exotic, but Rihani was surely
recognized as a gn:at poet.
The contemporary reviews held that the poems were filled with more of
'mysticism'. The Evening Transcript of March 19, 1921 for instance considered the:
verse as that which "sings a good deal about the mystics and mysticism ... ''' (Bushrui,,
Munro, Chant on~_ystics 16). Such reviews were a result ofthe blurred understanding
of Rihan's poetry. These poems were far from merely exotic. They dealt with serious:
Arab thought; they dealt with the Arab problems and the Arab culture.
But the poems were quite more than an exposition of the oriental life and
culture to the West. One of the more considered themes was the universal theme of
the man's plac:e in the universe and the problems and the vicissitudes of the man and
his fate on the e;ffirth. And here the philosophical questions of mysticism acquire
importance. While discussing man's place in the universe, Rihani's poems are not
mystk in the way one understand mysticism as a hermit's isolation from the world.
Rather, Rihani sought his mysticism through the world. He was a true Sufi or mystic.
And again, the ~criiltks in the West misunderstood Sufism as an exclusi~rely Muslem
sect.
Rihani use:d Sufism as a synthesis of the Christian and Muslein tradition,
otherwise there was no reason whatsoever for the poet, who was a Christia11 Maronite
to adopt Sufism as a philosophy of his poetry. The poet was definitely aware of the
tension betwet!n the culture of his Arab homeland that obviously pulled him towards
Islam and his spiritual and religious upbringing that attracted him towards
Christianity. This t•msion inherent in the Sufi tradition provided him with the
recondliation between East and West As the poet says in the poem tnat gives the
collection its title

Nor Crescent Nor Cross we adore:

Nor Buddha nqr Christ we implore:

 69

Nor Muslem nor Jew we abhor:

We are free.

We are not of Iran of Ind,

We are not of Arabia or Sind:

We are free.

We are not of the East or the West:

No boundaries exist in our breast:

We are free. (III, 45-54)

As these lines reflect, the poet's ingrained belief in Sufism makes him accept all
-religions and lets him be free from the dogma of any particular religion, which he
found extremely regressive. He is at one with 'Crescent' or 'Cross', 'Buddha' or
'Christ', 'Muslem' or 'Jew'.
Likewise in the poem I am the East printed in the collection Hymns of the
Valleys, the poet speaks about the meeting of the East and the West, in the event of
his own personal history as an Arab immigrant:

The Sun pushes me to wander

With visions in my eyes and heart;

I am fixed on my never-ending pilgrimage;

I am like planets unaware of their motion ...

It has no end.

It may rest with inquisition at the doors of Liverpool. ..

Or lost in the white railway in New York ...

I am the East!

I approached you, son ofthe West, as the companion (14-31)

There is a curious ambiguity about some of Rihani's poems like the one quoted
above, and this ambiguity is a result ofthe poet's complex emotional and intellectual
 70

identity. The complexity of such identity is again a result of an admixture of the

poet's pan-Arab concerns, his Christian-Lebanese origins, the diasporic Arab-
American identity and his experience of migration.
In such lines as "I am the East/ I approached you, son of the West, as the
companion" or "We are not of the East or the West: I No boundarie.s exist in our .
breast: I We are free'', one can see the influence of Carlyle and the European travelers
Burton, Palgrave and Doughty's contact with the East. Rihani is here busying himself
in inventing the Arab-American identity in terms that are closest to the contem.p<~rary

postcolonia1 writings suc:h as those of Homi Bhabha. As an Arab who has adopted the
American realities whih! keeping intact his contacts with the East, Rihani foregrounds
an Arab-American identity, which necessitates the meeting of the Orient and the West
on an equal footing. .A close reading of such poems as quoted above sb.ows a
'slippage', whrich brings Rihani right into the Postcolonial discourse, fixing identity as
partial and incomplete. The poems raise the issue of ambivalence :as theor,ized by
Homi Bhabha, whe:n he speaks about the colonial imitation:
what th€!Y all share is a discursive process by which the excess or
slippag<! produced by the ambivalence of mimicry (almost the same,
but not quite) does not merely 'rupture' the discourse, but becomes
transformed into an uncertainty which fixes the colonial subject as a
'partial' presence. (Bhabha, The Location 86)
Though Bhabha has in mind particularly the writings from erstwhile colonies of India,
Africa and the Caribbean, his thesis equally applies to the Arab-American poetry.
Rihani's immigrant experience, his shuffling betwee11 two countries and their
disparate cultures makes him an ideal candidate for the postcolonial realities as
envisaged b!)l Bhabhat .
My love, in the fields of foreign lands, I planted;

It bloomed before nature commanded.

My love I planted in a fresh soil...

I planted it in the fields of trade,

Clos1e: to the mills which civilization made ...

I left: cities, and seas I sailed

And on to the water my love I sprinkled ...

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In my country, in the soil of my grandfathers

I planted roses with soft branches

Here, we see in the poet's cultural consciousness the instabilities and

ambivalences of an immigrant identity, which is provisional and shifting. There is
indeed recognition of a contingent identity by the voice in Rihani's poetry, which is
uncomfortable with the solidity of any one identity. By declaring that is not content
by being only 'East' or 'West', the voice declares a constant movement between the ·
two cultures, without willing to accept ariy one as a final recourse.
By working within codes that were, by definition, 'largely alien to
native Arab codes, a tension was set up that can be considered
symptomatic of the postcolonial text. The Arab writer in English was
no different in this respect to the West Indian, African or Australian
writer in English. Each must decide whether or how ·far the alien
metropolitan code is to be confirmed, or re-appropriated, subverted, or
replaced. For example, one way of challenging the total dominance of
metropolitan· qodes is for the writer to carry over words and
expressions from his native language and embody these within the text
written in the metropolitan l<inguage. The western reader is thereby
forced to decode their situational if not their denotative meanings. In .
this way, the reader has to work at decoding cultural difference, and
multicultural readings are made possible. (Nash, The Arab Writer in
English 8)
This unwillingness of the poet to be identified with any rigid identity, a
postcolonial reality, interestingly goes well with his Sufism. Rihani was that seeped in
the ideology of Sufism because it recommended quest of God through various steps,
the most primary of which was love. The poet approached Sufism as a humble
disciple and paid homage to all the major Arab and Persian poets in the Sufi tradition
like Fariduddin Attar (d. 1225), Jalaludin Rumi (d.1273), Umar Ibn 1-Farid (d.1235)
and Muhyi d-Din Ibn 1-Arabi (1165-1240). An. analysis of Rihani's poem
Renunciation brings forth the poet's indebtedness to the Sufi masters, especially
Jalaludin Rumi:
At eventide the Pilgrim came

And knocked at the Beloved's door.

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"·Whose there!" a voice within, "Thy name?"

"Tis J!," he! said. -"Then knock no more.

As weU ask thou a lodging of the sea,-

There is no room herein for thee and me."

The J>ilgritm went again his way

And d!wdt with Love upon the shore

Of self-oblivion ... {l-9)

The poem is almost a re-writing of one of Rumi' s pieces where he uses th~ similar
situation of a love:r's visit to his beloved's lodging to explain spiritual love.
A great many poems in the collection A Chant of Mystics develop this Sufi
strain in Rihani to Intis conception of the Unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud), which
becarne; the poet's talisman to resolve the growing conflicts both in the East and the
West. This doctrine: states that there is no distinction possible between the essence and
its attributes, betwc!en God and His Creation. He says in the poem The Two J3rothers
I am God: thou art Man: but the light

That mothers the planets, the sea

Of star-dust that roofs every height .

Of the Universe, the gulfs of the night,-

They are surging in thee as in me. (16-20)

Indeed It's the ability of the poet to incorporate the western experience in his
Arab self that stands out. Ameen A. Rihani, a noted critic on Rihan:i, summarizes
Rihani's westVern experiences as having seen lived in New York not only as an
immigrant but also as a writer/thinker, as one who was interacting with the dynamic
city and helping himself create a vital vision based on these, and as having accepted
New York as a second homeland, which gave: him the liberty to both praise and
criticize:.
What is cultural about Rihani's Western experience may be collected
in three dimensions: 1. He became integrated in American literary and
 73

artistic circles, 2. He identified himself with the concerns of the

American and European literary and artistic figures, 3. He accepted the ,
difficult challenge of getting his work accepted by major American
journals, news papers and publishing houses. (Rihani, Ameen A., The
Western 17)
One of the central features of Rihani's poetry is the atmosphere of nostalgia the
poems create. The poet's emotions search in memory the pastures of expression. And
this is as true of Rihani as is true of Gibran.
An important element in the poet's awareness of his identity is his relation to
the past, as in the poem In the Palm Groves of Memphis.
Alas! Where are the roses which the prime

Of summer share

With the sesame, the myrtle and the thyme

In meadows fair?

Where is the sacred lotus and the bloom

Of cumin and mimosa, whose perfume

Once filled the shrine of Isis and her tomb?

Where is the pomegranate flower that shone in Cleopatra's hair? (19-

27)

The remembrance of the landscape, the different objects, their sounds and smell
transform the poet's present consciousness. Rihani shared a wonderful relationship
with Gibran, and in the followings he entreats upon the latter to join him in invoking
their homeland.
Seems it's a day in Lebanon

Whose secrets are to man untied,

One of those hours which smoothly glide

Like a bird in the silent dawn ...

Blackberries under a high rock ... (To Gibran 1-12)

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The poet further says,

Al'l over spre:ad their coral hue;

And at its fo:o1t, the laurel grew (13-14)

Hymns of the Valle~@ was written at the tum of the century. In this collection,
the poet presents a voice, which is tom between tradition and modernity. There are
images of the East in 1the ~1oems like The Simoom Wind, The Bulbul and the Gale,
Life and Death: Fall and S~unset in Lebanon, My Temple in the Valley th.at parallels
the images of the West in poems like On New Year's Eve. And sometimes Eastem
and Westem images d{:~omte the same poem like in The Stones of Paris.
The poem Life; an1j. Death: Fall and Sunset in Lebanon is very special ilil lhe
collection, and yet again cEillls to the poet's mind his associations of his homeland . It is
not simply i) recollection, but also the effect the past experiences on the present of the
poet that matter in this poem, which can be seen in the following lines.
Vv'hile on the peak ofMount Sannin the wind blows,

And its roaring echo in the valleys below howls.

J[ can hear Ht1e rustling of the whirling dry leaves .

I can also h1~ar the wind tapping on the glass of windows (5-8)

And then the: poet asks the reader to identify himself/herself with the poet
Come with me, reader!

Enjoy this s1ensational sight,

Which calls for serenity, reverence, and joy! ...

Is this Life?

Is it Deatl1?

Listen!

The Bulbul sings merrily in his cage. (24-54)

A unique poem in the c:ollection Hymns of the Valleys is, I am the East. Rihani wrote
the poem in 1922 in Cairo, and the poem expresses poet's emotional response to the
Eastern World and its c:ulture, its traditions, beliefs and rituals. As we would say the
 75

poem is a beautiful example of the transformation of visual image in verbal

expression under tl).e impact of the poet's strong emotion.
I am the East

I am the comer stone in the first temple of the God;

I am the comer stone ofthe first human throne (1-3)

Rihani and Gibran exchanged letters. They had a deep bond, which developed as a
result of the reality of migration. They shared a common interest and vision, which
was promoting an agenda to reawaken the spirit of freedom and independence
amongst the Lebanese and Syrians. They were dismayed and despaired at the
prevailing state of political and sectarian affairs in the homeland and amongst the
Lebanese and Syrian immigrants in the United States. The letters reveal the influence
of Rihani and Gibran on one another. Rihani was the older brother, and their
relationship was based and built on love, loyalty and respect. In the final section of
Hutaf-ul Awadiya (Hymns of the Valleys) the poet addresses Gibran as his beloved
companion, and promises him:
The future will give us justice-when my dust

In the valley of Al-Freike will rest

And call yours in the sacred valley.

Then from the pine that will shade my grave

The breeze will carry my fragrant kisses to your cave,

Which the Cedar will forever shade.-(To Gibran 219-224)

So their love and companionship would defy death. The poem foregrounds his most
intimate and at the same time his rational feelings for his poet-friend.
Rihani's project of reviving the Arab culture in America had its own
compulsions of expressing Arab nationality. However, gradually the purely cultural
expressions changed into more political poems, when time came to take a position on
the European and Ottoman colonization of the Arab lands and their people. P~ems

like Constantinople, Revolution and Freedom: My Companion contain more overt

political contents. Even before Europe colonized the Arab lands, the Arab nations had
been reeling under the despotism of the Turkish regime. The Ottoman was a threat
 76

and insult to the national spirit of the Arab people, and Rihani took it as his
responsibilitty to sing of nationalism from a far off land, as he does in Constantinople.
When Othman's sword, as Paleologue's, is broken

And Othman's gods are smitten to the dust,

And not remains, not even a rusty token

Of their hierarchal t::ruelty and lust (1-4)

This poem, as a fe:w other:s, brings to the fore Rihani's concerns about the Turkish
rule over Syria. From 1905 till 1910, the poet turned his attention and his energies to
the serious political question of how to liberate his native Syria of the colonial rule
and despotism. He lived mosdy at this time in his home village of Frieke in Lebanese
mountains, and dwelt on the corrupting influence of the colonialism on the native
elites of the colonized n1ations. The speaking voice in the above poem marks a
oneness with the Pan-Aralbic hero in The Book ofKhalid, and his cultural radicalism.
Later, Rihani's c.ounter-Ottoman stance merged with his anti-Zionism. In
September 1917, he wrote an article in The New York Times against the
establishment of the Zionist hegemony in Palestine, and poems like the following one
express his conc:eFJIS adequately.
The poe:m, The Rev!Qlution, voices his aggressive thought on the systematic
oppression of the Arab people by various international forces, and the poet invoke·S
the people about the ine:vitability of the defeat of such forces.
Oppressors! B~ware of fire and chains,

Of bombardment in your domains,

\'Vhen you no more can decree or command,

When obey1ecl are no more your demands.

Woe, then, to the oppressors! ...

Woe to th1~ oppressors,

When people breathe the spirit of power,

When volcanoes thrust forth their fire,

 77

When goodly spirit in the masses prosper, •

When the oppressed the sword of the oppressors gains,

And inflicts the corrupted with torturing pains. (33-69)

The poet's voice becomes more sinister in lines such as those quoted above,
and this goes only to show the poet's fervid response to political turmoil at his native
place. The threat issued to the 'oppressors' is that of a fervent activist. This poem
could be read as targeting not only Ottoman but also any organized force against
Islam and the Arab world, like the Zionism, against which Rihani always raised his
voice.
By the war, the poet had created a platform to discuss the Arab affairs that
included the demand for Arab independence, warnings to the European powers
against the colonization of Arab lands, and the revoking of the Balfour Declaration.
While the poet is committed to the cause of his people back home, he let it be known
that his position includes his role a diasporic individual, who connects hi~ self to the
political turmoil of the Arab world from the United. States. The poet states in the poem
_./

Freedom: My Companion,
We lived in foreign lands and tasted

The sweetness of love and the bitterness of toil.

Then I left to the East, my shrine,

To the Arab world, my joyful kiss. (17-20)

The emotional bond with the homeland is never slackened even a bit. In fact, it takes
on a more intensive note as the distance from the homeland makes remembrance of
the homeland, the fond memories left coupled with the present problem read and
heard, more sweet and bitter.
Along with Gibran, Rihani differs from his predecessors in the sense that he
didn't act simply as someone who brought the Western values in con~ct with the East
and the Middle East in particular.
They can be said to have inherited the mantle of cultural
meditation .. .instead of serving as mediators of Western civilization to
Arab Asia, as their predecessors had done, they engaged in mediating
Arab culture and political concerns to the West.. .to address the issues
 78

of the colonization of Arab lands and the emergence of Arab national

movement and its anti-colonial struggles with the westen1 powers,
Great Britain and France. (Nash, The Arab Writer in English 50)
A good number of his poems have, therefore, a high political content.
In one of lhtis letters dated 1905, Rihani says, "My aim throughout has been
twofold, namely 1to expose and combat the evils of autocracy and hierru:c:hy ander
which my country is tottering and to establish a new school of literature in Arabic'"
(Fadcloul 65). The statement foregrounds Rihani's major oc<;upation as a social
reformer and poet, and it is difficult to separate the reformer in Rihani from the poet
in him and vice V{:n;a, and that is what constitutes the excellence of him as a poet.
In 1922, Rihani traveled majorly through the Arabian Peninsula, where he
visited, talked and befriended various leaders and tulers. He lectured
comprehensively,, presenting to the Arab minds the knowledge of democracy. He
lighted in their (eyes the vision of Arab independence from Ottoman Turkey and
'
Europe. pan·-Aralb Concerns
"I was told that Ustaz (he meant me) is a spy for the British

Government."

"That may be."

'·'Our rulers are, then, being deceived."

'''1'-fo one is infallible."

''I heard also that he is in service ofKing Husein."

'"That may be."

"Are you going to Jaizan?"

"lnshallah." (Around the Coasts 17'7-178)

Ri.hani proposed the need for Arab solidarity as a counter to the Western
colonizatiion. The initiative started as a process of decolonization, which began as
approver of Arab self-determination to the West. Edward Said says in his essay, The
Politics of N.{1~!1Q!Y, "Our task as Arabs and Palestinians is to pay closer attentiion to
our own national narrative, which is neither an idle aesthetic pursuit nor something
that can be c,ontinually postponed" (Nash, The Arab Writer in English 46).
 79

One of the major projects with the Arab-American.. poets, especially Rihani
and Gibran was, no doubt, the mahjar project of uniting the East and the West, but
they first saw as important uniting the Christian and Muslim history and traditions.in
the Arab lands. Rihani, definitely, in some of his poems dreams of a secular Arab
nationalism. Damascus is one such poem.
You retain a field of heroism called, "Ash-shabibah."

Your Shabibah have a new spirit,

One whose cradle is toil,

Whose course is determination,

And whose root is patriotism.

The spark carrying the message of nationalism

To Arab world flashes from your spirit, Damascus. (1-7) ·

The poem was written in 1925, and is addressed to the young generation. The
poet urges upon the young men and women of the Arab lands to unite by recognizing
the various links in the history and culture. In the same poem, he says:
To those with an Arabic tongue wherever they are.

Yours is a tongue of veneration, wherever the name

Ahmad is mentioned with the name of the Christ ...

Damascus! You are freedom's pomegranate and tulip!

Damascus! You are men's platform of independence (12-18)

Here, he sees language as an important linking factor between the various peoples of
the Arab lands. Ahmad is a popular name used by the Muslims, and poet means the
peaceful coexistence of the Muslims and the Christians in Syria. It is important at this
point to note what Rihani wrote in one 'of his letters, following World War I, as his
frustration on the partition of Syria,
There are two groups, in fact two parties, in our midst. One party drew
a narrow circle around itself and said: This is our country; this is our
circle. Another party drew a broader circle around the narrower one
and said: This is our country; this is our circle that surrounds yours and
protects it ... the first circle is Lebanon, and the second is Syria. The
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first i~; the symbol of the principle of the Lebanese: awakening, and the
seccmd is the symbol of Syrian unity ... The first principle is based on
the sectarian idea ... whereas the second principle is based on the
correct social idea that weak people ca1mot survive and prosper except:
through unity ... That is why we say that the Lebanese idea, in fact the:
national sectarian idea, is an old and impotent idea. If w;e adopt it; it
will he a devastating blow to us. It was at the root of our defeat andl
misery in the past, and wii.I be, if it prevails, the r;eason fmr our misery
in the future ... ·what a narrow conception of Lebanon! (Rihani, AI:
~~~niyat 145)
Rihani de15ll1 itely proved himself as the writer-reformer, an Eastern pioneer of
mode:m thought. Foremost on his agenda were his dreams of reforming the~ ~;;onditions

of men, of Lebanese men in particular. He was a sensitive observer with a questioning

mind, and took on the ills and vices in the old and contemporary social,, •economic,
political and c:ultural conditions. As the poet hopes in his poem, Constantinople, as he
addresses his homeland,
When thou shalt rise, rejoicing in thy loss,

Upon the ruins of a state nefast

To mconcile the Crescent and the Cross

And wash thy hands ofthine unholy past (9-12)

These lines confirm Rihani's position as standing on the verge of an era of

poscolonialism and nationalism. Echoing the concerns of Edward Said, Rih.ani seems
to be: occupied iln creating an Arab history through his po~;:try, by reuniting the
different traditim11s.
The follm¥ing assertion of Edward Said is relevant for putting Rihani's poetry
in correct perspective.
Our task as Arabs and Palestinians is to pay closer attention to our own
national narrative, which is neither an idle aesthetic pursuit nor
something that can be continually postponed. Without a history that
ne:eds to be painstakingly researched and put together a~ a cohere:nt
story, we are like orphans with neither parents nor a home that we can
claim as our own. In addition, modern Western Orientalists are re-
 81

writing the history of Islam as a tale of anger and irrationality in their

.
constructions, the Arab and· Muslim component of Palestine is always
portrayed as either subordinate or non-existent. We cannot accomplish
our self-determination as a people unless we can write and tell our own
history-from ancient times till the present. (Nash, The Arab Writer in
English 138)
It is such belief in the tradition and history of his homeland that would enable the poet
to counter the· colonial and imperialist denigration that poet expresses in the poem,
They Deserted It.
They deserted it as the pigeons on the hillocks were wailing; .

They cursed it, their wounds with its banners covering. (1-2)

And then, in the same poem, the poet sees a ray of hope that gives him the strength for
reviving its glory and history:
0 God! There remains in my nation a virtuous remnant;

0 God! There remains in my country the sunrise

Which still reflects your lights.

0 God! There remains on the banks of the Nile

A throne surrounded with the lighted

Candles of knowledge and guidance.

There remains in.the land of the Pharos

The remains of a lively, pure, and sacred spirit

Filled with knowledge (45-53)

The present consciousness of the poet is always, as in the case of the above
lines, born out of wonderful combination of fond memories and present perception. It
is the glorious past of the homeland, which he has experienced himself, that produces
in him the hope that all will be well with his native place and its people. His
'
awareness of himself is always characterized by these feelings and thoughts.
Hence, it could be said of Rihani that he set the Arab-American poetry on a
secure footing by inventing for it subjects and forms that could best characterize an
ethnic American literature. More importantly, he made poetry to address important
 82

concerns of people in hiis adopted as well as his original homeland, which makes his
poetry special. His contribution to Arab-American poetry and culture remains
unequalled by any other poet, except perhaps Khalil Gibran.