Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān (Arabic: جُبْرَن خَلِيل جُبْرَن) was born on January 6, 1883, and died on April 10, 1931. He is most commonly known in English as Kahlil Gibran. He was a Lebanese-American writer, poet, and artist. Some people called him a philosopher, but he did not want that title. He is best known for writing The Prophet, a book first published in the United States in 1923. This book has sold millions of copies and has been translated into over 100 languages.
Gibran was born in Bsharri, a village in the Ottoman Empire, to a Maronite Christian family. When he was 12 years old, he moved with his mother and siblings to the United States. His mother worked as a seamstress, and he attended school in Boston. A teacher noticed his talent and introduced him to F. Holland Day, a photographer and publisher. At 15, Gibran returned to Lebanon to study at a school in Beirut. He later moved back to Boston after his sister died in 1902. Soon after, his older brother and mother passed away, and he relied on his sister’s income from her job as a dressmaker for a time.
In 1904, Gibran’s drawings were displayed in Boston for the first time. His first book in Arabic was published in New York City in 1905. With help from Mary Haskell, a kind supporter, Gibran studied art in Paris from 1908 to 1910. In Paris, he met Syrian thinkers who supported political change in the Ottoman Empire. Some of Gibran’s writings, which shared similar ideas and criticized religious leaders, were banned by Ottoman authorities. In 1911, Gibran moved to New York, where his first English book, The Madman, was published in 1918. He also worked on The Prophet and The Earth Gods. His artwork was shown in galleries in Boston and New York. He corresponded with May Ziadeh, a writer, starting in 1912. In 1920, Gibran helped restart the Pen League, a group of poets.
Gibran died at age 48 from cirrhosis and early stages of tuberculosis. At the time of his death, The Prophet had already been translated into German and French. His body was moved to his birthplace in Bsharri, Lebanon, where he had left money from his book sales to build a museum in his honor.
Scholars like Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins said Gibran’s life was shaped by ideas from different thinkers. He wrote about many themes and used different styles in his work. Salma Khadra Jayyusi said Gibran was the most important influence on Arabic poetry and literature in the first half of the 20th century. His paintings often showed spiritual and mythical symbols. Art critic Alice Raphael said his work was similar to that of Leonardo da Vinci. His many writings and paintings are seen as a lasting gift to people around the world.
Life and career
Gibran was born on January 6, 1883, in the village of Bsharri in the Mount Lebanon region (now part of Lebanon). Few records mention the Gibrans, but they are believed to have arrived in Bsharri near the end of the 17th century. A family story claims they came from Chaldean origins, but a more likely account says they moved from Damascus, Syria, in the 16th century and lived on a farm near Baalbek before settling in Bash'elah in 1672. Another account suggests the family lived in Acre before moving to Bash'elah in 1300. Gibran’s parents, Khalil Sa’ad Gibran and Kamila Rahmeh, were Maronite Christians. Kamila’s grandfather had converted from Islam to Christianity. She was 30 when Gibran was born, and Khalil was her third husband. Gibran had two younger sisters, Marianna and Sultana, and an older half-brother, Boutros, from one of Kamila’s previous marriages. Gibran’s family lived in poverty. In 1888, he began attending Bsharri’s one-class school, run by a priest, where he learned Arabic, Syriac, and basic math.
Gibran’s father, Khalil, initially worked in a pharmacy but faced financial problems due to gambling debts. He later worked for a local Ottoman official. In 1891, Khalil was removed from his position as a tax collector, and his staff was investigated. He was imprisoned for misusing funds, and his family’s property was taken by the authorities. Kamila decided to move to the United States. Although Khalil was released in 1894, Kamila left for New York on June 25, 1895, taking Boutros, Gibran, Marianna, and Sultana with her.
Kamila and her children settled in Boston’s South End, which had the second-largest Syrian-Lebanese-American community in the United States at the time. Gibran entered the Josiah Quincy School on September 30, 1895. He was placed in a special class for students learning English. His name was registered as "Kahlil Gibran." His mother worked as a seamstress who sold lace and linens door-to-door. His half-brother, Boutros, opened a shop. Gibran also attended an art school at Denison House, a nearby settlement house. His teachers introduced him to F. Holland Day, a Boston artist who supported Gibran’s creative work. In March 1898, Gibran met Josephine Preston Peabody, who was eight years older than him, at an art exhibition. He developed a romantic connection with her. That same year, a publisher used some of Gibran’s drawings for book covers.
Kamila and Boutros wanted Gibran to learn more about his heritage rather than focus only on Western culture. At 15, he returned to Lebanon to study Arabic literature for three years at the Collège de la Sagesse, a Maronite-run school in Beirut, where he also learned French. During his final year at the school, he created a student magazine with classmates, including Youssef Howayek, who became a lifelong friend. Gibran was named the "college poet." He graduated at 18 with high honors and then traveled to Paris to study painting, visiting Greece, Italy, and Spain on the way. In Paris, he socialized with intellectuals and met Auguste Rodin, a famous artist, who recognized Gibran’s talent.
On April 2, 1902, Sultana died at age 14, likely from tuberculosis. Gibran returned to Boston two weeks after her death. The next year, Boutros died of the same disease, and Kamila passed away from cancer on June 28. Two days later, Peabody left Gibran without explanation. Marianna supported Gibran and herself by working at a dressmaker’s shop.
In January 1904, Gibran held his first art exhibition in Boston at Day’s studio. During this event, he met Mary Haskell, a school headmistress who was nine years older than him. They formed a lifelong friendship. Haskell spent money to support Gibran and edited his English writings. The nature of their romantic relationship is unclear. Some say they were lovers but never married because Haskell’s family opposed it, while others suggest their relationship was not physical. Gibran and Haskell were briefly engaged between 1910 and 1911. Haskell ended the engagement, explaining she preferred their friendship over marriage. She later married Jacob Florance Minis in 1926 but remained Gibran’s close friend and supporter.
In 1904, Gibran met Amin al-Ghurayyib, editor of Al-Mohajer ("The Emigrant"), where he began publishing articles. In 1905, he published A Profile of the Art of Music in Arabic through Al-Mohajer’s printing department in New York. His next work, Nymphs of the Valley, was published the following year in Arabic. In 1908, Haskell introduced Gibran to Charlotte Teller, a 31-year-old writer, and Émilie Michel, a 19-year-old French teacher. Both women became models for Gibran and close friends. That same year, he published Spirits Rebellious, a novel critical of religious and spiritual authority. The book was burned in Beirut by some religious groups who called it "dangerous" and "harmful to youth." The Maronite Patriarchate spread rumors of Gibran’s excommunication but never officially declared it.
In July 1908, with Haskell’s financial help, Gibran studied art in Paris at the Académie Julian, joining the atelier of Jean-Paul Laurens. He left the school partly to distance himself from
Works
Gibran used many different types of writing, including poetry, parables, short stories, fables, political essays, letters, and aphorisms. After his death, two plays in English and five plays in Arabic were published between 1973 and 1993. Three plays he wrote in English near the end of his life remain unpublished: The Banshee, The Last Unction, and The Hunchback or the Man Unseen. In his writings, Gibran discussed topics like religion, justice, free will, science, love, happiness, the soul, the body, and death. His work was known for breaking from old writing styles, using symbolism, showing love for his homeland, and having a sentimental, sad, yet often dramatic tone. Scholars like Salma Jayyusi and Roger Allen say Gibran was the leading poet of the Mahjar school and part of the Romantic (neo-romantic) movement.
Salma Khadra Jayyusi noted that Gibran’s choice of words was less common for a modern poet, as his themes were spiritual and universal. The poem You Have Your Language and I Have Mine (1924) was published after people criticized his use of Arabic. Scholars like Bushrui and Jenkins say the Bible, especially the King James Version, greatly influenced Gibran. His work also reflects the Syriac tradition. According to Haskell, Gibran once told her that the parables of the New Testament influenced his own parables and homilies, while the poetry of the Old Testament shaped his devotional language and rhythms. Annie Salem Otto wrote that Gibran intentionally copied the Bible’s style, unlike other writers of his time who did so without realizing it.
Ghougassian said the works of English poet William Blake had a special impact on Gibran, especially Blake’s vision of the world. Gibran called Blake “the God-man” and praised his art as deeply meaningful. George Nicolas El-Hage noted that Gibran admired Syrian poet Francis Marrash, whose works he studied. Marrash’s ideas on love, education, women’s rights, and society’s morals influenced Gibran. Scholars like Bushrui and Jenkins said Marrash’s idea of universal love left a strong impression on Gibran.
American poet Walt Whitman also influenced Gibran, especially his focus on the shared humanity of all people and his love for nature. El-Hage wrote that German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s influence appeared in Gibran’s work only after The Tempests. Though Nietzsche’s style interested Gibran, he was not deeply influenced by him.
For many years, Gibran’s work was ignored by scholars and critics. Bushrui and Munro said this happened because his writings, though mostly in English, did not fit easily into Western literary traditions. El-Hage added that critics often failed to understand Gibran’s view of imagination and his changing focus on nature.
Waterfield wrote that Gibran became interested in being a Symbolist painter after working in Marcel-Béronneau’s studio in Paris. Between 1908 and 1914, Gibran preferred oil paints, but he used pencil, ink, watercolor, and gouache before and after that time. In a letter, Gibran said Turner was the greatest English artist. Haskell recorded that Gibran was inspired by Turner’s painting The Slave Ship (1840) to use bold colors in his painting Rose Sleeves (1911).
Gibran created more than 700 visual artworks, including the Temple of Art series. His works can be seen at the Gibran Museum in Bsharri, the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Harvard Art Museums. A possible Gibran painting was featured in a 2008 episode of the PBS series History Detectives.
Examples of his artworks include:
– The Ages of Women, 1910 (Museo Soumaya)
– Self-Portrait and Muse, c. 1911 (Museo Soumaya)
– Untitled (Rose Sleeves), 1911 (Telfair Museums)
– Towards the Infinite (Kamila Gibran, mother of the artist), 1916 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
– The Three are One, 1918 (Telfair Museums), also the frontispiece of The Madman
– The Slave, 1920 (Harvard Art Museums)
– Standing Figure and Child, undated (Barjeel Art Foundation)
Religious views
According to Bushrui and Jenkins, in addition to Christianity, Islam, and Sufism, Gibran's spiritual beliefs were also shaped by theosophy and the ideas of Carl Jung. In Suheil Bushrui's book The Essential Gibran, the Irish writer George William Russell noted that Gibran referred to himself as a "lifeist" and often spoke highly of life.
Around 1911–1912, Gibran met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, the leader of the Baháʼí Faith, who was visiting the United States. Gibran painted a portrait of him during this time. The meeting left a strong impression on Gibran. Later in life, Juliet Thompson, a Baháʼí and one of Gibran's friends, said Gibran could not sleep the night before their meeting. This experience inspired Gibran to write Jesus the Son of Man, a book that describes Jesus through the "words of seventy-seven people who knew him—enemies and friends, including Syrians, Romans, Jews, priests, and poets." After ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death, Gibran gave a speech about religion with Baháʼís. At another event, after watching a film of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Gibran stood up, cried, and spoke highly of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá before leaving the event in tears.
In the poem "The Voice of the Poet" (صوت الشاعر), published in A Tear and a Smile (1914), Gibran wrote:
"You are my brother, and I love you. I love you when you pray in your mosque, kneel in your church, or pray in your synagogue. You and I are sons of one faith—the Spirit. Those who lead the different parts of this faith are like fingers on the hand of a god who guides us toward the perfection of the soul."
In 1921, Gibran took part in a discussion at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery about the question, "Do We Need a New World Religion to Unite the Old Religions?"
Political thought
In 1911–12, Gibran met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, who traveled to the United States to support peace efforts. Gibran respected ʻAbdu'l-Bahá’s teachings on peace but believed that young nations, like his own, should be free from Ottoman control. During this time, Gibran wrote his famous poem "Pity the Nation," which was published 20 years after his death in The Garden of the Prophet. On May 26, 1916, Gibran wrote a letter to Mary Haskell stating that the famine in Mount Lebanon was planned by the Turkish government. He noted that 80,000 people had died from starvation, and thousands were dying daily. He compared this tragedy to the suffering of Christian Armenians and Christians in Mount Lebanon. Gibran dedicated a poem titled "Dead Are My People" to those who died in the famine.
Gibran also supported making Arabic the national language of Syria. After the Ottomans were driven from Syria during World War I, Gibran created a joyful drawing titled "Free Syria," which was printed on the cover of the Arabic-language newspaper As-Sayeh (founded in 1912 in New York by Haddad). Adel Beshara reported that a draft of a play, still kept among Gibran’s papers, expressed his hope for national independence and progress. According to Khalil Hawi, this play clearly showed Gibran’s belief in Syrian nationalism, which he distinguished from Lebanese and Arab nationalism. He believed nationalism and internationalism coexisted in his thinking. Waterfield noted that Gibran was not fully in favor of socialism, as he thought it focused on the simplest level rather than helping people reach their best.
Legacy
The popularity of The Prophet increased greatly during the 1960s with the American counterculture and later with the growth of the New Age movements. It has remained popular with these groups and the general public until today. Since its first publication in 1923, The Prophet has never been out of print. It has been translated into more than 100 languages, making it one of the top ten most translated books in history. It was one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century in the United States.
Elvis Presley continued to refer to Gibran’s The Prophet for the rest of his life after receiving his first copy as a gift from his girlfriend, June Juanico, in July 1956. His annotated copy is still in Lebanon, and another is displayed at the Elvis Presley museum in Düsseldorf. A line from Sand and Foam (1926), which states, “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you,” was used by John Lennon and included, in a slightly changed version, in the Beatles’ song “Julia” from their 1968 album The Beatles (also known as The White Album).
Johnny Cash recorded The Eye of the Prophet as an audio cassette book. On his 2003 album Unearthed, Cash discusses Gibran’s work on a track titled “Book Review.” British singer David Bowie mentioned Gibran in the song “The Width of a Circle” from his 1970 album The Man Who Sold the World. Bowie used Gibran as a “hip reference” because Gibran’s work A Tear and a Smile became popular in the hippie counterculture of the 1960s. In 1978, Uruguayan musician Armando Tirelli created an album based on The Prophet. In 2016, Gibran’s fable “On Death” from The Prophet was composed in Hebrew by Gilad Hochman for a performance featuring soprano, theorbo, and percussion. The piece premiered in France under the title River of Silence.
Gibran’s influence extends beyond the arts. In his 1961 inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy may have been inspired by Gibran’s 1925 essay The New Frontier. Echoing Gibran’s words about Lebanon, Kennedy delivered the famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
His most famous work, The Prophet, was adapted into a film with the same name in 2014. In 2018, Nadim Naaman and Dana Al Fardan created a musical called Broken Wings, based on Gibran’s novel of the same name. The world premiere took place at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Many places, monuments, and schools around the world are named in honor of Gibran, including the Gibran Museum in Bsharri, the Gibran Memorial Plaque in Copley Square, Boston, the Gibran Khalil Gibran Garden in Beirut, the Kahlil Gibran Memorial Garden in Washington, D.C., the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, and the Khalil Gibran Elementary School in Yonkers, New York. A crater on Mercury was named in his honor in 2009.
Family
American sculptor Kahlil G. Gibran (1922–2008) was a cousin of Gibran. The Katter political family in Australia was also related to Gibran. In parliament, he was described as a cousin of Bob Katter Sr., originally named Khittar, who served for many years in the Australian parliament and was a former Minister for the Army. Through Bob Katter Sr., he is connected to his son, Bob Katter, founder of Katter's Australian Party and former Queensland state minister, and to state politician Robbie Katter.