Khalil Gibran

Khalil Gibran (born Gubran Khalil Gubran) was born to a Maronite Catholic family from the historical town of Bsharri in northern Lebanon. As a young man, he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and started his literary career. As a result of his family’s poverty, Gibran received no formal schooling during his youth. However, priests visited him regularly and taught him about the bible, as well as the Arabic and Syriac languages.

Much of Gibran’s writings deal with Christianity, especially on the topic of spiritual love. His mysticism, however, is a convergence of several different influences: Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Hinduism, and theosophy. He wrote: “you are my brother and I love you. I love you when you prostrate yourself in your mosque, and kneel in your church and pray in your synagogue. You and I are sons of one faith – the Spirit.” An accomplished artist, Gibran held his first art exhibition of his drawings in 1904 in Boston, at Day’s studio. During this exhibition, Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, a respected headmistress ten years his senior. The two formed an important friendship that lasted the rest of Gibran’s life. Though publicly discreet, their correspondence reveals an exalted and deeply passionate intimacy as evidenced in the book “Beloved Prophet” (published in 1972) which contains excerpts of over six hundred letters exchanged between the two and spanning over the course of 23 years.

Haskell influenced not only Gibran’s personal life but also his career, introducing him to several key individuals who would ultimately help steer his artistic course. In 1908, Gibran went to study art in Paris for two years. While there he met his art study partner and lifelong friend Youssef Howayek.

While most of Gibran’s early writings were in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. His first book for the publishing company Alfred A. Knopf, in 1918, was The Madman, a slim volume of aphorisms and parables written in biblical cadence somewhere between poetry and prose. One of his most notable lines of poetry in the English-speaking world is from “Sand and Foam” (1926), which reads: “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you”. His poetry is notable for its use of formal language, as well as insights on topics of life using spiritual terms.

Gibran’s best-known work is The Prophet, a book composed of twenty-six poetic essays. The book became especially popular during the 1960s with the American counterculture and New Age movements. Since it was first published in 1923, The Prophet has never been out of print. Having been translated into more than 40 languages, it was one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century in the United States.

Even though political unrest plagued his homeland, Gibran was by no means a politician. He used to say: “I am not a politician, nor do I wish to become one” and “Spare me the political events and power struggles, as the whole earth is my homeland and all men are my fellow countrymen”. Gibran died in New York City on April 10, 1931.

Before his death, Gibran expressed his wish to be buried in Lebanon. This wish was fulfilled in 1932 when Mary Haskell and his sister Mariana purchased the Mar Sakis Monastery in Lebanon, which has since become the Gibran Museum. The words written next to Gibran’s grave are “a word I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you…..”.

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