Khalil Saadeh was born in the Lebanese town of Choueir in 1857. After he obtained his primary education in the town, he moved to the Syrian Evangelical College, later known as the American University of Beirut, where he earned his MD in 1883. Saadeh’s beginnings were marked by the release of Al-Tabib, a medical and scientific magazine that was published for several years in Lebanon before he relocated to Egypt and started publishing a series of books and novels there. 
 

From Egypt, which he left after severed ties with the Khedives, he migrated to South America where he ended up spending the rest of his life. Soon after setting foot in Argentina, he issued a periodical called Al-Majalla. His stay was marked by several social initiatives.  He launched the Syrian Press Trade Union designed to address cultural and social concerns, and then announced the creation of the National Democratic Party. Saadeh moved to Brazil in 1919 and maintained a connection between his homeland and the Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian diasporas through a weekly periodical, Al-Jaridah. In later years, Saadeh was appointed honorary chairman of the Syrian National League and editor-in-charge of its weekly periodical Al-Rabitah.
 

Saadeh drew attention to the reasons that kept the Arab nations stuck behind the times, warning that should these reasons persist, they would wreak unsparing havoc on the entire Arab world. Foremost among these reasons are the religious divides, which apply to all communities and which will herald abrupt devastation. These divides are, according to Saadeh, the most fatal ailment of all, followed by egoism whereby one is fully absorbed in what promotes him to the highest ranks, turning a blind eye to the interest of his country and people. The third most common reason is the lack of justice, which results in the violation of rights and the loss of claims, all the way down to idleness, which ravages the entire nation. 
 

Despotism, the brutal condition which dates back to the era of Jahiliyyah, had led nations by the nose for so long, turning them into flocks of sheep led by a ruler or a king who deified himself and converted his subjects into slaves, until one day, the world dusted its humiliation off with the eruption of the French Revolution. “As for the Orient, only its mountains, plains and valleys have changed while its nations and peoples remained largely rigid and have not recorded any political development worthy of mentioning.” Despotism confined Orientalists in iron chains as they waited for their governments to surrender power and gift it to them; they did not revolt. Khalil Saadeh called on the peoples of the Orient to stage a massive revolution to establish that the people are the true source of power and sovereignty, not the rulers.
 

In the chapter entitled The Rise of the Orient, the author sings the praises of the wondrous Arab nation and its even more wondrous language. He exalts the scientific Arab renaissance under the Abbasid era, which made the Arabs even more civilized and whose lofty remnants remain alive to date. The glories of the ancient Syrians and Phoenicians- traders, industrialists and explorers- are also extolled. Yet, the author calls to the reader’s attention that the Andalusian renaissance was the last among the renaissances of the Orient before the nation drifted into torpor and sluggishness. The strangest aspect of this idleness, according to the author, is that the Orientalists do not even view it as strange. The brains of their men and women are too indolent that they can hardly look beyond the banalities of day-to-day life. They are oblivious of the riches of their rivers and of their treasure troves and unexploited soil. They fail to fathom the diseases and ailments befalling the people or the futile teaching methods which graduate students akin to parrots. The lack of roads and railroads and factories are of little concern to them. Superstition has gripped their feeble minds leading them to mistake lightning for evil spirits and thunders for Genie voices. Saadeh described this state as the ‘regression of the Orient’; this, in addition to its most fatal ailment, religious tolerance.

Dr. Saadeh’s call for secularism, independence and revolutionary zeal was also accompanied with a call for socialism through the philosophy of hunger, which was the primary force that propelled the rise of the French nation. Had the French not felt the pinch of hunger, they wouldn’t have revolted against Louis XV in demand of bread. Saadeh cautioned tyrants and despotic rulers to beware the weariness of their people.
 

The book concludes with an open message to the Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians in which Saadeh congratulates them for breaking free from the yoke of the Ottomans who oppressed them and controlled their fate for four centuries, hoping that they will put their sectarian differences aside join together to serve the nation and push it to the forefront of civilized nations.

Saadeh passed away on April 10, 1934 leaving behind a legacy that time has never been able to erase.