Once back in his homeland, he began teaching English in a clerical school in return for being taught formal Classical Arabic. Rihani had first become familiar with Arab poets in 1897. Among these poets were Abul-Ala Al-Ma’arri, whom Ameen discovered to be the forerunner of Omar Khayyam. In 1899 he returned to New York, having decided to translate some of the quatrains of Al-Ma’arri into English. The first version of the translation was published in 1903. He began writing in English, becoming, according to Lebanese historian Samir Kassir, "the first Arab to publish in English without at the same time renouncing his own language."Kassir, Samir, Histoire de Beyrouth, Paris, Fayard, p.394 During this period, he joined several literary and artistic societies in New York, such as the Poetry Society of America and the Pleiades Club, and also became a regular contributor to an Arabic daily newspaper, Al-Huda, published in New York. He wrote about social traditions, religion, national politics and philosophy. Thus, he began his extensive literary career, bridging two worlds. He published his first two books in Arabic in 1902 and 1903.
