After being turned out by his parents for his disobedience, a Maronite teenager named Khalid scrapes up the funds to emigrate to the United States of America by working as a muleteer. Crossing the Atlantic with his friend Shakib, Khalid sets himself up in New York city as a peddler of counterfeit trinkets “made in the Holy Land.” He quickly loses interest in peddling and develops eccentric philosophical views as he immerses himself in various turn-of-the-century subcultures, including the freethought movement, Bohemianism, and Tammany Hall. Spurred on by his love for his cousin Najma, Khalid returns to his Lebanese hometown, Baalbek, where his iconoclastic philosophy earns him the enmity of the religious and secular authorities. Becoming an exile in his own homeland, Khalid takes on the mantle of a prophet and develops an eclectic Arab nationalist philosophy that mixes Eastern and Western ideals.

Although it was composed in Lebanon, The Book of Khalid is hailed as the first Arab-American novel. A reflection of Ameen Rihani’s own Arab nationalism, the novel has served as a literary touchpoint between the Arab and American worlds. The 100th anniversary of the novel’s publication coincided with the outbreak of the 2011 Arab Spring protests, which led some commentators to connect the anti-authoritarian Arab protests with Khalid’s revolutionary vision.