He studied Arabic literature and theology with the savant Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi (1856–1924). He was invited to Istanbul by ‘The Arab Friends Association’ to edit the Arabic language magazine Sabil al-Rashad (The Path of Reason). According to Khulusi, Rusafi declared his republican revolutionary tenets within earshot of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II as early as 1898, exclaiming in one of his odes "It is because it is republican, that government can remove the blindness of those who are led astray."[39] Rusafi inveighs against the Ottoman Caliphate.