Gibran and Gebran lead here.
For other persons named Gibran, Gebran, Jibran,
Jebran, see Gebran
Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese artist, poet,
and writer.
Born in the town of Bsharri in the north of
modern-day Lebanon, as a young man he immigrated
with his family to the United States, where
he studied art and began his literary career,
writing in both English and Arabic.
In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a
literary and political rebel.
His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance
in modern Arabic literature, especially prose
poetry, breaking away from the classical school.
In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary
hero.
He is chiefly known in the English-speaking
world for his 1923 book The Prophet, an early
example of inspirational fiction including
a series of philosophical essays written in
poetic English prose.
The book sold well despite a cool critical
reception, gaining popularity in the 1930s
and again especially in the 1960s counterculture.
Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all
time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi.
Life
Early years
Khalil Gibran was born into a Maronite Catholic
family from the historical town of Bsharri
in northern Mount Lebanon, then a semi-autonomous
part of the Ottoman Empire.
His mother Kamila, daughter of a priest, was
thirty when he was born; his father Khalil
was her third husband.
As a result of his family's poverty, Gibran
received no formal schooling during his youth
in Lebanon.
However, priests visited him regularly and
taught him about the Bible, as well as the
Arabic and Syriac languages.
Gibran's father initially worked in an apothecary,
but with gambling debts he was unable to pay,
he went to work for a local Ottoman-appointed
administrator.
Around 1891, extensive complaints by angry
subjects led to the administrator being removed
and his staff being investigated.
Gibran's father was imprisoned for embezzlement,
and his family's property was confiscated
by the authorities.
Kamila Gibran decided to follow her brother
to the United States.
Although Gibran's father was released in 1894,
Kamila remained resolved and left for New
York on June 25, 1895, taking Khalil, his
younger sisters Mariana and Sultana, and his
elder half-brother Peter.
The Gibrans settled in Boston's South End,
at the time the second-largest Syrian-Lebanese-American
community in the United States.
Due to a mistake at school, he was registered
as "Kahlil Gibran".
His mother began working as a seamstress peddler,
selling lace and linens that she carried from
door to door.
Gibran started school on September 30, 1895.
School officials placed him in a special class
for immigrants to learn English.
Gibran also enrolled in an art school at a
nearby settlement house.
Through his teachers there, he was introduced
to the avant-garde Boston artist, photographer,
and publisher Fred Holland Day, who encouraged
and supported Gibran in his creative endeavors.
A publisher used some of Gibran's drawings
for book covers in 1898.
Gibran's mother, along with his elder brother
Peter, wanted him to absorb more of his own
heritage rather than just the Western aesthetic
culture he was attracted to.
Thus, at the age of fifteen, Gibran returned
to his homeland to study at a Maronite-run
preparatory school and higher-education institute
in Beirut, called "al-Hikma".
He started a student literary magazine with
a classmate and was elected "college poet".
He stayed there for several years before returning
to Boston in 1902, coming through Ellis Island
on May 10.
Two weeks before he returned to Boston, his
sister Sultana died of tuberculosis at the
age of 14.
The year after, Peter died of the same disease
and his mother died of cancer.
His sister Marianna supported Gibran and herself
by working at a dressmaker's shop.
Debuts, growing fame, and personal life
Gibran was an accomplished artist, especially
in drawing and watercolor, having attended
art school in Paris from 1908 to 1910, pursuing
a symbolist and romantic style over the then
up-and-coming realism.
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.
The nature of their romantic relationship
remains obscure; while some biographers assert
the two were lovers but never married because
Haskell's family objected, other evidence
suggests that their relationship never was
physically consummated.
Haskell later married another man, but she
continued to support Gibran financially and
to use her influence to advance his career.
She became his editor, and introduced him
to Charlotte Teller, a journalist, and Emilie
Michel, a French teacher, who accepted to
pose for him as a model and became close friends.
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.
Gibran also took part in the New York Pen
League, also known as the "immigrant poets",
alongside important Lebanese-American authors
such as Ameen Rihani, Elia Abu Madi and Mikhail
Naimy, a close friend and distinguished master
of Arabic literature, whose descendants Gibran
declared to be his own children, and whose
nephew, Samir, is a godson of Gibran's.
Death
Gibran died in New York City on April 10,
1931, at the age of 48.
The causes were cirrhosis of the liver and
tuberculosis.
The young emigrant from Lebanon who came through
Ellis Island in 1895 never became an American
citizen; he loved his birthplace too much.
Before his death, Gibran expressed the wish
that he be buried in Lebanon.
This wish was fulfilled in 1932, when Mary
Haskell and her sister Mariana purchased the
Mar Sarkis Monastery in Lebanon, which has
since become the Gibran Museum.
Written next to Gibran's grave are the words
"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."
Gibran willed the contents of his studio to
Mary Haskell.
There she discovered her letters to him spanning
twenty-three years.
She initially agreed to burn them because
of their intimacy, but recognizing their historical
value she saved them.
She gave them, along with his letters to her
which she had also saved, to the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library before
she died in 1964.
Excerpts of the over six hundred letters were
published in "Beloved Prophet" in 1972.
Mary Haskell Minis donated her personal collection
of nearly one hundred original works of art
by Gibran to the Telfair Museum of Art in
Savannah, Georgia in 1950.
Haskell had been thinking of placing her collection
at the Telfair as early as 1914.
In a letter to Gibran, she wrote "I am thinking
of other museums ... the unique little Telfair
Gallery in Savannah, Ga., that Gari Melchers
chooses pictures for.
There when I was a visiting child, form burst
upon my astonished little soul."
Haskell's gift to the Telfair is the largest
public collection of Gibran's visual art in
the country, consisting of five oils and numerous
works on paper rendered in the artist's lyrical
style, which reflects the influence of symbolism.
The future American royalties to his books
were willed to his hometown of Bsharri, to
be "used for good causes".
Writings
Style and recurring themes
Gibran was a great admirer of poet and writer
Francis Marrash, whose works he had studied
at al-Hikma school in Beirut.
According to orientalist Shmuel Moreh, Gibran's
own works echo Marrash's style, many of his
ideas, and at times even the structure of
some of his works; Suheil Bushrui and Joe
Jenkins have mentioned Marrash's concept of
universal love, in particular, in having left
a "profound impression" on Gibran.
The poetry of Gibran often uses formal language
and spiritual terms; as one of his poems reveals:
"But let there be spaces in your togetherness
and let the winds of the heavens dance between
you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
let it rather be a moving sea between the
shores of your souls."
Many of Gibran's writings deal with Christianity,
especially on the topic of spiritual love.
But his mysticism is a convergence of several
different influences: Christianity, Islam,
Sufism, Judaism 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."
Reception and influence
Gibran's best-known work is The Prophet, a
book composed of twenty-six poetic essays.
Its popularity grew markedly during the 1960s
with the American counterculture and then
with the flowering of the New Age movements.
It has remained popular with these and with
the wider population to this day.
Since it was first published in 1923, The
Prophet has never been out of print.
Having been translated into more than forty
languages, it was one of the bestselling books
of the twentieth century in the United States.
The opening lines of "The Prophet" plays heavily
on the "immortal" quatrains of the largely
discredited works of French "seer" Nostradamus.
Interestingly, Gibran's full name is Gibran
Khalil Gibran and to which the "number of
the beast" 666 of the Book of Revelation could
easily have been ascribed by Gibran as referring
to himself.
These unfortunate coincidences most likely
inspired Gibran's opening lines of "The Prophet".
One of his most notable lines of poetry is
from "Sand and Foam", which reads: "Half of
what I say is meaningless, but I say it so
that the other half may reach you".
This line was used by John Lennon and placed,
though in a slightly altered form, into the
song "Julia" from The Beatles' 1968 album
The Beatles.
Johnny Cash recorded Gibran's "The Eye of
the Prophet" as an audio cassette book, and
Cash can be heard talking about Gibran's work
on a track called "Book Review" on Unearthed.
Visual art
His more than seven hundred images include
portraits of his friends WB Yeats, Carl Jung
and Auguste Rodin.
A possible Gibran painting was the subject
of a June 2012 episode of the PBS TV series
History Detectives.
Religious views
Gibran was born into a Maronite Christian
family and raised in Maronite schools.
He was influenced not only by his own religion
but also by Islam, and especially by the mysticism
of the Sufis.
His knowledge of Lebanon's bloody history,
with its destructive factional struggles,
strengthened his belief in the fundamental
unity of religions, which his parents exemplified
by welcoming people of various religions in
their home.
Gibran had a number of strong connections
to the Bahá'í Faith.
One of Gibran's acquaintances later in life,
Juliet Thompson, reported several anecdotes
relating to Gibran.
She recalled Gibran had met 'Abdu'l-Bahá,
the leader of the religion at the time of
his visit to the United States, circa 1911–1912.
Gibran was unable to sleep the night before
meeting him in person to draw his portrait.
Thompson reported Gibran later saying that
all the way through writing Jesus, the Son
of Man, he thought of `Abdu'l-Bahá.
Years later, after the death of `Abdu'l-Bahá,
at a viewing of a movie of `Abdu'l-Bahá,
Gibran rose to talk and proclaimed in tears
an exalted station of `Abdu'l-Bahá and left
the event weeping.
A noted scholar on Gibran is Suheil Bushrui
from Gibran's native Lebanon, also a Bahá'í,
published more than one volume about him and
serves as the Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values
and Peace at the University of Maryland and
winner of the Juliet Hollister Awards from
the Temple of Understanding.
Political thought
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."
Nevertheless, Gibran called for the adoption
of Arabic as a national language of Syria,
considered from a geographic point of view,
not as a political entity.
When Gibran met 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 1911–12,
who traveled to the United States partly to
promote peace, Gibran admired the teachings
on peace but argued that "young nations like
his own" be freed from Ottoman control.
Gibran also wrote the famous "Pity The Nation"
poem during these years, posthumously published
in The Garden of The Prophet.
When the Ottomans were eventually driven out
of Syria during World War I, Gibran's exhilaration
was manifested in a sketch called "Free Syria"
which appeared on the front page of al-Sa'ih's
special "victory" edition.
Moreover, in a draft of a play, still kept
among his papers, Gibran expressed great hope
for national independence and progress.
This play, according to Khalil Hawi, "defines
Gibran's belief in Syrian nationalism with
great clarity, distinguishing it from both
Lebanese and Arab nationalism, and showing
us that nationalism lived in his mind, even
at this late stage, side by side with internationalism."
Works
In Arabic:
In English, prior to his death:
Posthumous, in English:
Collections:
Other:
Beloved Prophet, The love letters of Khalil
Gibran and Mary Haskell, and her private journal
Memorials and honors
Lebanese Ministry of Post and Telecommunications
published a stamp in his honor in 1971.
Gibran Museum in Bsharri, Lebanon
Gibran Khalil Gibran Garden, Beirut, Lebanon
Gibran Khalil Gibran collection, Museo Soumaya,
Mexico.
Kahlil Gibran Street, Ville Saint-Laurent,
Quebec, Canada inaugurated on September 27,
2008 on occasion of the 125th anniversary
of his birth.
Gibran Kahlil Gibran Skiing Piste, The Cedars
Ski Resort, Lebanon
Kahlil Gibran Memorial Garden in Washington,
D.C., dedicated in 1990
Elmaz Abinader, Children of Al-Mahjar: Arab
American Literature Spans a Century
Gibran Memorial Plaque in Copley Square, Boston,
Massachusetts see Kahlil Gibran.
Khalil Gibran International Academy, a public
high school in Brooklyn, NY, opened in September
2007
Kahlil Gibran, Bust, Yerevan, Armenia 2007
Khalil Gibran School Rabat, Moroccan and British
international school in Rabat, Morocco
Pavilion K. Gibran at École Pasteur in Montréal,
Quebec, Canada
Khalil Gibran Park in Bucharest, Romania
Gibran Kalil Gibran sculpture on a marble
pedestal indoors at Arab Memorial building
at Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
Gibran Khalil Gibran Memorial, in front of
Plaza de las Naciones, Buenos Aires.
Date?
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Bust
Gibran Khalil Gibran Cultural Space in northern
Caracas, Venezuela.
2013 February Bankstown, Sydney Australia.
Corner of Restwell St and South Terrace.
Bust of Gibran
Notes
References
Sources
External links
Online copies of texts by Gibran
Works by Khalil Gibran
BBC World Service: The Man Behind the Prophet
The New Yorker: Prophet Motive
