Talk:Kahlil Gibran

Minor Additions For Interest's Sake

I added the information from "Juliet Thompson Remembers Kahlil Gibran", pertaining to Juliet Thompson's quote mentioning the influence of 'Abdu'l-Baha on the character of Almustafa in The Prophet. I've added a site that excerpts quotes from the book on the subject to the references if anyone's interested.

I thought I read in Bushrui's biography of Gibran that Abdul Baha was who he had partly in mind while he was writing Jesus, the Son of Man. But I guess I could be wrong.

Hodgepodge of Comments and Questions

There must be thousands of men named Khalil Gibran. Both the first name and the surname are common Arabic names, so clearly there are more than two. Khalil Gibran is no "new age" phenomenon, and he is quite well thought of by Arabs, as well as Arab-Americans, Euro-Americans, Europeans and you name it.

On one end of your note you say he's Lebanese, but at the bottom you say he is not an Arab. You can't have it both ways. He was indeed Arab.

An American of Lebanese descent

Are there two guys named Kahlil Gibran? The only one I know of (maybe I'm clueless? ;-) is the Lebanese poet. - This is him.

I'm just wondering about the romaticized account of his youth and his "being the genius of his age". How is his stature amongst Arab-speaking people? I always figure him to be somewhat more adopted by the New Age movement as some sort of a "prophet" himself.

Gibran was not an Arab. He was Lebanese. To know more about the difference read Are Lebanese Arabs?

IN REPLY... It was during the 1960's that Gibran's popularity soared when the 'New Age' people were falling over themselves to get hold of a copy of The Prophet. Until this time his success had been somewhat limited although it's true to say that in his homeland of Lebanon he was firmly established as a hero of the country. On his burial there in 1932 there was an immense procession that followed behind his coffin and to this day he is very much regarded as one of the 'sons of Lebanon'. From quite early in his career Gibran gained a certain popularity amongst many of the other Arabic speaking nations.

There is at least one other 'well known' Kahlil Gibran and this is the Boston based sculptor. Both KG (poet) and KG (sculptor) are related although I'm not sure how. KG (sculptor) is the author of the book Kahlil Gibran His Life And Work (a biography of KG the poet).

Need for Editing

I'm removing the reference of Gibran as a philosopher, as he does not seem to have a great claim to fame in that area. IMHO it is just idolization. I have also removed some other slanted parts, but IMHO it could still use some objective editing by someone familiar with Gibran's biography, removing the picturesque anecdotal material, or at least toning it down to a less idolizing tone. (This paragraph was added by 130.89.166.237)

Hmm. I just blew up the picture of the KG memorial in Washington, DC. Apparently the Americans recognise him as a poet and a philosopher. I'm temepted to reprise that entry. What do you think?

--Philopedia 22:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thirty-six years before President Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural Address; Gibran, in his work The New Frontier (1925), had already prompted his brethren in the Middle East:

"Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert."

The article states that JFK wrote his own speech (the ask not...) when in fact it was written by a Nebraskan named Ted Sorenson. Someone should fix that, but I'm having trouble with my login. (137.48.218.226 15:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC))

Ted Sorensen is a blatant ploagarist if he claimed to have penned that.

Parodies

I find the parodies section pretty lame, and I think it should be deleted. Objections? Sebastian 20:46, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

• Yes. Khalil Gibran, like Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha, is a fairly frequent target of parodies, deserved or not. He is to the twenties as New Age material is to our time: many take it very seriously, and some do not. Something or other should be said about this. Perhaps the UNIX fortune cookie entries are going too far, but the article should not be a puff piece. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:47, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Tom Sorenson used Gibran; therefore, so did John F. Kennedy

Kamila

Who is Kamila? The person's name is used, and that they are the bread-earner fo the family. Is this supposed to be the father, because the father's name was also Khalil in the article. Is that also a mistake?

IN REPLY... Kamila Rahmeh was Gibran's mother. His father's name was Khalil Gibran Saad Youssef Gibran. When the family emigrated to the US the father remained behind in Lebanon leaving Kamila to be the bread-earner.

Kamila had been married previously and from that marriage had produced one child - Peter (aka Butros) who was six years older than KG. From her second marriage she had 3 children, Kahlil was the oldest and he had 2 younger sisters named Mariana and Sultana.

Sultana died from tuberculosis at the age of 14 on 4th April 1902, Butros died of consumption on 12th March 1903 and Kamila died of cancer on 28th June 1903. Kahlil died on 10th April 1931 and was survived by Mariana. I'm not sure when she died or when his father died.

Yikes! Copyvio...

...or so it would appear.

Most of the text in this article is very close to an article on Khalil Gibran from the Cornell University Library. And has been since 24 June 2004 when 80.84.132.163 added it. Since then, minor edits have created small differences.

The Cornell Khalil Gibran article does not credit Wikipedia, so I don't think this is a case of them copying us. I don't see either a copyright notice or an indication that the material is under a free license either on the Khalil Gibran article or the Cornell Middle East and Islamic collections home page.

If it's really a copyvio, I find it a bit scary that it could have gone unnoticed for over a year.

I hope I'm wrong.

I've reverted the page to the last version that existed prior to the addition of the copied material. I don't have time now to do the work to recover and valuable material added since 24 June 2004.

Comments welcome. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I've performed two edits on the page. The first tries to incorporate stuff that was added between the inclusion of the copyright data and the current state of the document. This data is clearly non-copyright. With the second edit, I've tried to add the information back from the source, but in a different format; I don't know if this is ok, so it isn't please remove the second edit. -- Jeff3000 17:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I've strolled past this guy's books in the religion section of bookstores for some time and curiousity finally overtook me. I wish there was more here on why he seems so popular, when I've never heard of anybody reading him - though I have heard he is popular in the Near East before, as has been mentioned - as well as other authors occasionally referencing him. In any case, I'm not able to tell how much of the Lebanese-Arabic debate is politically motivated (i.e. nationalistic - though to be sure there are significant differences in cultural and genetic heritage [not to mention the Christians, Shi'a and Druze], I imagine many "Arab" countries have a similar situation (outside the Arabian peninsula), though to a lesser extent - the ol' Muslim vs. Arabic question. E.g. Persians, Pakistanis and Indonesians may be Muslim but they are certainly not Arab. In any case, someone objective, with expertise on the area would be appreciated here), and it reminds me of the Hindi-Urdu debate on the language front. Thus coming to the language front (finally), and not knowing anyone whom has read Gibran (who so far as it seems to me, appears like the pop-Hindu writers of recent times), I am not certain on if the 'jīm' ج here is a standard Arabic 'j' sound; or if it operates like the Egyption dialect and takes a 'g' sound. Anybody whose been around transliteration issues before will hopefully appreciate my consternation and add the IPA. Khirad^talk 09:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm almost positive that it's pronounced /dʒ/, not /g/. I believe the Levantine dialects of Arabic use the standard ǧīm sound, unlike Egyptian. This seems to be born out by the fact that the Bulgarian, Georgian, Italian, Kurdish, and Persian Wikipedia articles all use the /dʒ/-pronunciation as well. The Hebrew article does seem to go for the /g/, although to be fair, I've poured over information on the Hebrew alphabet, and can't seem to find a way to actually write a /dʒ/, at least not one that's in use these days. I can't make heads or tails of the Greek even after reading through a list of unintuitive letter combinations and permutations used for foreign sounds. I still think the preponderance of evidence indicates the /dʒ/ pronunciation. Go for it: /xæ'lil dʒɪ'bran/.

Keldan 08:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Khalil is pronounced more like halil with an almost silent letter h slipped in - ha(h)lil. The Gi in Gibran is pronounced as in the French pronunciation of the word gigolo (unlike the English pronunciation which is more like jigolo). If you want to hear the pronunciation then go to the Arab American Institute's Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Award Page (link here) and click the video link at the top of the page.

Spelling

(EMM) I don't know the etiquette for editing articles like this one that actually might get attention ;), but I am confused about the spelling of Gibran's first name; I was redirected to "Khalil" from "Kahlil," but my English-language copies of The Prophet and Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran both spell it "Kah-". On the other hand, my French-language copy of Le Prophète spells it "Kha-". Does the standard transliteration vary internationally? If so, how did Wikipedians decide on this spelling? -- unsigned by 66.188.136.33

See the discussion in the wikiquote page [1] -- Jeff3000 22:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Gibran's alleged Assyrian ethnicity

I would like to see the actual statement from the book Kahlil Gibran: His Life and World where it says that Gibran was Assyrian. Actually, the same book says that it is a "family myth" that links the Gibrans to Chaldean sources (origins) while a more "plausible story" is the Gibrans came from Syria. [[2]] --Inahet 06:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see the actual statement from the book Kahlil Gibran: His Life and World - well, buy the book Chaldean 03:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I obtained one a few days ago from the library out of curiousity, and so far I haven't read anything about him claiming to have Assyrian origin. The link that I posted is enough to show that the book states that his ancestry is obscure. Also, the person who posted this Assyrian claim did so based on the information provided from this Assyrian web site [3] which states that Khalil Gibran never stated that he was an Arab, and in his biography he is referred to as the "little Assyrian boy". The authors of the actual biography did not refer to him as an Assyrian. They quoted a person (his art teacher's friend) referring to him as a little Assyrian boy in a letter she wrote. Gibran did not claim that he was Assyrian, and from what I read so far, his close friends and his family members did not either. You should check the link I posted previously [4], it says enough on his ethnic background.

And in the book, he is identified many times by the authors as Syrian not Assyrian.--Inahet 06:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

An anon just re-added the Assyrian claim. I don't think anyone cares for accuracy anymore. I'm just going to leave it as is, what I'm going to gain anyway? The biography written by his cousin's son says that he is of obscure origins, so why can't we just leave him as Lebanese? The Assyrian claim is unheard of and only a few Assyrian sites make that claim. Maybe someone else can deal with this, I'm out! --Inahet 03:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

And in the book, he is identified many times by the authors as Syrian not Assyrian. — We Assyrians are also known as Suryoyo. We have been called Syrians for over 2000 years. Before the modern Arab state of Syria, Syrian always meant Assyrian. — EliasAlucard|Talk 09:41 11 Oct, 2007 (UTC)

1. Identifying KG as Assyrian seems odd to say the least. KG's family was Maronite. The Assyrians are also Christians, but they not Maronite.

2. Perhaps the confusion comes from the self identification of Maronites with Ghassanians, a Christian group in Syria (not Assyria!) which sought refuge in the mountains of Lebannon during the period of Moslem expansion. (I see no reason to doubt this identification, although I agree it may be hard to prove).

3. Another possible explanation: at the time of KG's birth Lebanon and Syria were one country (generally called Syria). Lebanon and Syria remain quite close culturally, with some Lebanese expatriate groups (although, characteristically not the Maronites) chosing to identify themselves with Syria rather than Lebanon.

I hope this sheds some light. I'll try to keep the discussion in view and, after everyone has had a chance to air their views, I may adjust the article, if that still seems appropriate.

--Philopedia 00:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

It's funny how people still seem to think that Maronites are TOTALLY UNRELATED to us Assyrians. They are Syriacs as well just like us, and spoke the same language as we did before the Arabization. Also, Maronite is from their Church father, just like we were called Nestorians or Jacobites; it's not our ethnicity, it's a Church identity. Same goes for the Maronites. Maronite is just a Church identity. That's all. — EliasAlucard|Talk 07:33 12 Oct, 2007 (UTC)

Hi Elias! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think I'm starting to follow your line of reasoning. Being a Maronite or a Nestorian is indeed a religious designation. However, it is also very reliable (with inevitable, but insignificant exceptions) as ethnic markers. The reason is the very strong tendency to marry exclusively inside one's own community (often inside ones own family, ie first or second cousin). Besides that, from at least about 700 onward, the Assyrians and the Maronites were geographically separated.

Could it be that you are arguing for a connection between the two groups from before the time of the Islamic expansion? But at that time much of the middle east was Christian. So that could hardly qualify as a unique shared characteristic that would signify pressing frounds for supposing kinship. Theologically as well, Maronites, with their strong allegiance to Rome; and Nestorians, with their characteric belief in a dual nature for Christ are quite different outlooks. It is certainly true that both groups held on to their Christian faith against the background of Islamisation. But just because two groups make the same decision doesn't argue for supposing they are related.

--Philopedia 19:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Notes on Khalil Gibran

In this section I will compile notes taken from Kahlil Gibran: His Life and Works, a biography written by his cousin's son of the same name. These notes can be incorporated into the article.

• "In 1883 Lebanon, officially Mount Lebanon, was an autonomous province of Turkey. It was commonly known to Westerners as Syria, and Gibran himself sometimes referred to the Lebanese people as Syrians."

• His mother was the "offspring of a priestly, and important family". And the Gibran clan was "small and undistinguished."

• "The word of their name Jebr has been linked to the word algebra"

• No one knows for sure where they came from... --Inahet 06:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Request for infobox

Could someone please put an infobox up for this person? Robert K S 22:13, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

cause of death

The article claims Gibran's cause of death was "cirrhosis of the liver" and tuberculosis. That could use a cite. I've had a lot of exposure to Gibran and I've never seen that before. I've always heard the cause of death referred to as tuberculosis.

I found that at his official website biography they talk about him having cancer of liver and turning to heavy drinking to deal with the pain. Several in his family get TB but they don't mention him having it. This page talks about cirrhosis of the liver.

http://www.kahlil.org/bio.html -Crunchy Numbers 17:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Most widely sold book ever?

"The Prophet remains famous to this day as the most widely sold book in history (surpassed only by the bible), and having been translated into more than 20 languages."

This seems extraordinarily unlikely. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.135.96.182 (talk) 23:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

Indeed. Russell Ash's ongoing "Top 10 of Everything" series (Hamlyn) includes a best-guess estimate of the "Best Selling Books of All Time", and "The Prophet" doesn't even appear amongst the list. (#2 on Ash's list is "Quotations from Chairman Mao", the manifesto better known as "The Little Red Book".)

As the authors of "The Top 10" point out: "It is extremely difficult to establish precise sales of contemporary books and virtually impossible to do so with books published long ago....As a result, this Top 10 list offers no more than the "best guess"...and it may well be that there are many other books with a valid claim to a place on it." With specific regard to Mao's work, Ash points out that ownership was compulsory for every Chinese adult between 1966 and 1971, and many may have been distributed for free.

A claim that "The Prophet" is the second best-selling book of all time seems extremely dubious.Funkyphd 16:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Miscellany and the spelling "Kahlil"

A few notes:

(1) The name was first misspelled Kahlil by one of KG's elementary school teachers. He was advised to keep the spelling which some found more esthetic.

(2) Of course Lebanese are Arabs. I'm not even going to look at the "Are Lebanese Arabs?" website. The question is ridiculous. They're an Arabic-speaking nation and their culture is an Arabic culture. That makes them Arabs.

(3) I'm tired of hearing that this or that book is the second-best-selling book of all time: Dante's Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, the Iliad, Wuthering Heights, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Atlas Shrugged, Quotations from Chairman Mao, and now The Prophet! Talk about silly. My guess would be the Qura'n, actually.

(4) I've looked at the statistics, and it's not true that the enormous popularity of The Prophet dates from the 1960's. It's been steadily popular since it was published. Indeed, I can say for sure that it was avidly read in the late 1950's, because I remember how many of my young friends were as hooked on it as I was.

(5) The article should make some mention the other bigtime Arabic poets and artists who were members of The Pen, like Mikhail Naimy and Ameen Rihani. Also, there should be more about KG's relationship with Mary Haskell--indeed, more about his life, period. The article stops telling us about his life when it gets past his youth. Also, let's hear a little about the artists and writers who influenced him greatly, such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Auguste Rodin and William Morris and William Blake and Henri Bergson.

(6) I know there are those who say KG's books The Prophet and Jesus The Son of Man were inspired by Abdul Baha', but there are other theories too about who inspired those books. This here Abdul Baha' theory doesn't have any written evidence--Gibran was a bigtime letter writer, and none of his letters mention Abdul Baha' as a model. The name of the Prophet, according to the first line of the book itself, is Almustafa, which is one of the titles of Muhammad; and Muhammad has been suggested as a source. As have others.

This article jumps to a good many conclusions and leaves out a lot of important stuff. Tom129.93.16.77 03:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Mary Haskell

I attempted to add a few facts and clarifications of Kahlil Gibran's relationship with Mary Haskell, which can only be described as extraordinary. My source is the 1972 book "Beloved Prophet". (Sorry I goofed and made these changes anonymously as 66.63.88.90. Can't seem to merge.)

Particularly revealing was this paragraph from page 447 in the epilogue of Beloved Prophet, When Mary Haskell and biographer Barbara Young were going through Gibran's studio about a week after his death.

"...Mary and Barbara Young had pulled out a large box. When it was opened, Mary recognized her letters to Gibran—the letters she had written when they first met, when he had gone to Paris to study, when he had left Boston for New York—those hundreds of letters spanning more than twenty years. When she realized what the letters represented, Barbara Young implored Mary to destroy them, and Mary agreed they should be burned. Later however, she returned to the studio and removed all of them. After saying goodby to Naimy, she took the 10:20 train for Savannah. Mary wrote Barbara Young that she could not agree to the destruction of the letters: she had always believed in Gibran, been certain of his greatness—her correspondence and their relationship were part of his history. She placed these letters with his letters to her, all of which she had saved. There they remained until they were given to the University of North Carolina."

Bob Stein - VisiBone 16:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Gibran's father

• The sources that i have claims that his father was imprisoned when he was 11-12 so that means it was at 1894-1895 accordding to the article his father was released at 1894 (odd...) moreover non of the sources i have mention the date of his father's release nor the fact that he chose to remain in lebannon... so does anyone has reliable source for these facts?

--Histolo2 20:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Spoof Kellogg

I saw a copy of a small book with this title, The Profit and by Kellogg Allbran. The illustrations were in the style of Gibran but satirising the art. It's attributed to Mad Magazine, but the book was authored by Barry Humphries the Australian satirist. As well, Kellog's Allbran is a breakfast cereal in Australia. I'll research it further and fix it if this is the case.Julia Rossi 23:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Parts of Kennedy speech possibly but not likely inspired by Gibran

I have just removed these lines form the article:

Gibran also inspired John F. Kennedy's often quoted sentence in the 1961 inaugural address with his 1925 article, "The New Frontier," which contained the epigrammatic : "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert."

The idea that the phrasing of JFK's Inaugural speech was inspired by lines from Gibran has appeared more and more prominently on the internet, and I just noticed that it has been placed here. Tracing a few facts a couple years ago at Wikiquote led me to reject that claim, and I am posting some dialogue between myself and anonymous IP that occurred on Wikiquote's JFK talk page in 2005 here:

"Ask not..."

When Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural speech, "ask not what your country can do for you --ask what you can do for your country." He was quoting Lebanese-American writer Khalil Gibran. Khalil Gibran is the one who wrote this famous saying! How come Khalil Gibran never gets aknowledged for making this great saying?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.19.143.213 (talk • contribs)

Reply:

It has been reported at various places on the internet that in JFK's Inaugural address, the famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", was inspired by, or even a direct quotation of the famous and much esteemed writer and poet Khalil Gibran. Gibran in 1925 wrote in Arabic a line that has been translated as:

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?

If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.

However, this translation of Gibran is one that occurred over a decade after Kennedy's 1961 speech, appearing in A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran (1975) edited by Andrew Dib Sherfan, and the translator most likely drew upon Kennedy's famous words in expressing Gibran's prior ideas. A translation by Anthony R. Ferris in The Voice of the Master (1958) exists that could conceivably have been used as an inspiration, but it is less strikingly similar:

Are you a politician who says to himself: "I will use my country for my own benefit"? If so, you are naught but a parasite living on the flesh of others. Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers into the ear of his inner self: "I love to serve my country as a faithful servant." If so, you are an oasis in the desert, ready to quench the thirst of the wayfarer.

The title of Gibran's essay has been translated as The New Deal, or The New Frontier.

Other even earlier occurences of similar expressions or ideas are also known to exist, and have sometimes been cited as possible sources of inspiration:

It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Memorial Day speech in Keene, New Hampshire (30 May 1884)

As has often been said, the youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask, not "What can she do for me?" but "What can I do for her?" ~ Lee Baron Russel Briggs, in "College Life", Routine and Ideals (1904)

In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it, and more anxious about what it can do for the nation. ~ Warren G. Harding Speech at the Republican National Convention, Chicago, Illinois (7 June, 1916)

Occasionally it has also been stated that JFK was quoting, paraphrasing, or adapting a statement of the ancient Roman orator Cicero, but with no example provided, and research done for Wikiquote as yet indicates no clear sources or definite citations as to when or where Cicero made any such expressions. ~ Kalki 22:33, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Syriac writings?

From the article: "While most of Gibran's early writings were in Syriac and Arabic". Source? Are his Syriac writings published?