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Gibran Khalil Gibran "The Prophet
Translated
by: Sana albasheer
Gibran Khalil Gibran
was born on January 6, 1883 Kahlil Gibran was a poet,
philosopher, and artist. His poetry has been translated into
more than twenty languages and his drawings and paintings
have been exhibited in the great capitals of the world.
He lived in the United States, which he made his home during
the last twenty years of his life. , to the Maronite
family of Gibran in Bsharri, a mountainous area in Northern
Lebanon [Lebanon was a Turkish province part of Greater
Syria (Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) and subjugated to
Ottoman dominion].
His mother Kamila Rahmeh was thirty when she begot Gibran
from her third husband Khalil Gibran, who proved to be an
irresponsible husband leading the family to poverty. Gibran
had a half-brother six years older than him called Peter and
two younger sisters, Mariana and Sultana, whom he was deeply
attached to throughout his life, along with his mother.
Kamila's
family came from a prestigious religious background, which
imbued the uneducated mother with a strong will and later on
helped her raise up the family on her own in the U.S.
Growing up in the lush region of Bsharri, Gibran proved to
be a solitary and pensive child who relished the natural
surroundings of the cascading falls, the rugged cliffs and
the neighboring green cedars, the beauty of which emerged as
a dramatic and symbolic influence to his drawings and
writings.
Being laden with poverty, he did not receive any formal
education or learning, which was limited to regular visits
to a village priest who doctrine him with the essentials of
religion and the Bible, alongside Syriac and Arabic
languages.
Recognizing
Gibran's inquisitive and alert nature, the priest began
teaching him the rudiments of alphabet and language, opening
up to Gibran the world of history, science, and language. At
the age of ten, Gibran fell off a cliff, wounding his left
shoulder, which remained weak for the rest of his life ever
since this incident.
To relocate the shoulder, his family strapped it to a cross
and wrapped it up for forty days, a symbolic incident
reminiscent of Christ's wanderings in the wilderness and
which remained etched in Gibran's memory.
At the age of eight,
Khalil Gibran, Gibran's father, was accused of tax evasion
and was sent to prison as the Ottomon authorities
confiscated the Gibrans' property and left them homeless.
The family went to live with relatives for a while; however,
the strong-willed mother decided that the family should
immigrate to the U.S., seeking a better life and following
in suit to Gibran's uncle who immigrated earlier.
The
father was released in 1894, but being an irresponsible head
of the family he was undecided about immigration and
remained behind in Lebanon.
The Gibrans settled in Boston's South End, which at the time
hosted the second largest Syrian community in the U.S.
following New York.
The culturally diverse area felt familiar to Kamila, who was
comforted by the familiar spoken Arabic, and the widespread
Arab customs.
Kamila, now the bread-earner of the family, began to work as
a peddler on the impoverished streets of South End Boston.
At the time, peddling was the major source of income for
most Syrian immigrants, who were negatively portrayed due to
their unconventional Arab ways and their supposed idleness.
In the school, a registration mistake altered his name
forever by shortening it to Kahlil Gibran, which remained
unchanged till the rest of his life despite repeated
attempts at restoring his full name.
Gibran entered school on September 30, 1895, merely two
months after his arrival in the U.S. Having no formal
education, he was placed in an upgraded class reserved for
immigrant children, who had to learn English from scratch.
Gibran caught the eye of his teachers with his sketches and
drawings, a hobby he had started during his childhood in
Lebanon.
Gibran's curiosity led him to the cultural side of Boston,
which exposed him to the rich world of the theatre, Opera
and artistic Galleries. Prodded by the cultural scenes
around him and through his artistic drawings, Gibran caught
the attention of his teachers at the public school, which
saw an artistic future for the boy.
They
contacted Fred Holland Day, an artist and a supporter of
artists who opened up Gibran's cultural world and set him on
the road to artistic fame...
Gibran's works were especially influential in the American
popular culture in the 1960s. In 1904 Gibran had his first
art exhibition in Boston.
From
1908 to 1910 he studied art in Paris with August Rodin. In
1912 he settled in New York, where he devoted himself to
writing and painting. Gibran's early works were written in
Arabic, and from 1918 he published mostly in English. In
1920 he founded a society for Arab writers, Mahgar
(al-Mahgar). Among its members were Mikha'il Na'ima
(1889-1988),
Iliya
Abu Madi (1889-1957), Nasib Arida (1887-1946), Nadra Haddad
(1881-1950), and Ilyas Abu Sabaka (1903-47). Gibran died in
New York on April 10, 1931. Among his best-known works is
THE PROPHET, a book of 26 poetic essays, which has been
translated into over 20 languages.
The Prophet, who has lived in a foreign city 12 years, is
about to board a ship that will take him home. He is stopped
by a group of people, whom he teaches the mysteries of life. |
