Saïd is by profession a fisherman, by nature a scamp. In his early twenties, he has been married to Hasneh for seven years, is childless and practises his trade on the Palestine coast near Haifa. He gives up fishing and sets off for Damascus, abandoning his wife on the way. To all whom he meets he lies and poses in order to defraud and to escape disaster. He reaches Damascus in the summer of 1860 and there lives a hand-to-mouth existence. Saïd the Fisherman is the story of his escapades amidst the build-up of tension between the Christian community on the one side and the Muslims and Druze on the other. In Saïd, Pickthall has created an unforgettable personality.