Muhteşemmm!! Kısa ama dev kitap... 54 sayfanın içine hayat sığdırılmış resmen.

نمی دونستم چه حسی نسبت بهش دارم. بعضی جمله هاش انقدر خوب و آشنا یا خاص بود که حس می کردم سریع باید یک جا نگهشون دارم و اون لحظه واسم این کتاب عالی بود و بعضی جاها اصلا درکش نمی کردم و ارتباط برقرار نمی کردم
بهترین ریویو این کتاب به نظرم قسمتی از بهترین جملاتی هست که واقعا موندنی بودن


به راستی که غم و شادی توأم یکدیگرند
با هم می آیند و با هم می روند
و اگر یکی از آن دو در کنار سفره شما بنشیند، شگفت زده نشوید
و بدانید که یار دیگرش در بسترتان خفته است
_____
خانه شما کالبد بزرگ تر شماست
در گرمی خورشید رشد می کند و در آرامش شب می خوابد و خواب می بیند
_____
زیرا پدران و نیاکانتان به خاطر ترس از گمگشتگی تان، شما را در یک جا و در کنار هم جمع کردند
_____
شما با هم در یک کاروان به سوی خدای درونتان در حال حرکتید
شما راهید و شما رهروید
پس چون یکی از شما بر زمین افتد
برای آنان که پشت سر اویند عبرتی می شود
تا پایشان بر همان سنگ نلغزد
_____
از اینکه قوانینی برای خودتان می گذارید لذت می برید
اما چون آن ها را بشکنید بیشتر لذت می برید
شما همچون کودکانی هستید که در ساحل بازی می کنند
با دقت برج هایی بزرگ با شن و ماسه می سازند
آنگاه خنده کنان آن ها را ویران می کنند
_____
زیرا اندیشه همچون پرنده آسمانی است
در قفس الفاظ بال می گشاید اما نمی تواند پرواز کند

Now that I'm reading The Prophet again, words that I read twenty-seven years ago still ring clearly in my mind as I read them again today. It was a wonderful moment a few evenings ago to find myself reciting aloud and from memory passages that had struck me then--and now--to the very core. Kahlil Gibran spent a couple of years revising The Prophet. Since it is a short book, the concepts come across as distilled. The influences of his native Lebanon as well as his love for scripture, come through in the scriptural-like language. I am savoring this book slowly this time, taking little sips at a time.

It's the story of Almustafa, the Prophet, who is departing the city of Orphalese after a 12 year visit. But before he leaves, before he boards the ship that will return him to his homeland, he is asked by the residents of the city to enlighten them on a variety of subjects that deal with life and life's issues. You will find wisdom, compassion, love, friendship, teaching, and maybe best of all, beauty. This book is a virtual roadmap for how to live your life to complete fulfillment.

جبران في رائعته - النبي
لا يقدك لك رواية تغوص في أحداثها.. بل يقدم لك منهاجاً للحياة
يعانق روحك سابحاً في مفاهيم الحياة والحب والعطاء والخير من منتحى الزوايا للعائلة والزواج والأبناء وغيرها ختاماً بالموت
كلمات من ذهب خطت لتبقى شعلة على مدى الأيام
لنرجع إليها كلما استبد بنا الشوق للهيام في روح العالم وتعرف مقدساته..
بين كتاب ورفي وكتاب مسموع كنت بالفعل أهيم في سماء جبران ونبيه القدّيس..

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”

Beautiful language and inspiring messages.

“You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

You must be in a certain mindset to accept this as the poetry as it is intended. Gibran’s prose is sincere and his direction is to create a philosophical work of lasting beauty but this 1923 publication can be dated.

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

دي مش هتبقي أول و أخر مرة أقراه, الكتاب مليان جدا و أعتقد انه صعب ان الواحد يدركه من أول مرة و لكني استمتعت بشكل كبير جدا بيه. فكرته فكرتني جدا بخطبة الوداع لسيدنا محمد (ص) , و ده مفسره ثروت عكاشة في المقدمة عن تأثر جبران بالانجيل و القرأن و النسخة الانجليزيه في أسلوبها الشعري و الرومانسي متأثر جدا بأسلوب ترجمة الانجيل , حتي الالفاظ المستخدمة شعرية انجليلة بشكل واضح.

ثروت عكاشة ابدع في الترجمة لم يجعلها ترجمة حرفية أو حتي ترجمة محترفية ناقلة فقط بالعكس أنا كنت احيانا بنسي انها ترجمة, أسلوبه الشعري و الفاظه في منتهي القوة و كأنه بيتحدي نص جبران نفسه.

المقدمة السابقة لكتاب النبي و هي من 104 صفحة قوية جدا و لكني انصح بقرأتها بعد الانتهاء من كتاب النبي نفسه.

" لقد اراد جبران بكتابه النبي ان يقدم لنا نفسه,و يقدم لنا مع نفسه صورة صحيحة للانسان الكامل الذي أسفرت
تجاربه عن ضرورة وجوده لاصلاح نفوس البشر. و بهذا المعيار نفسه يقوم جبران عمله"

" كتاب النبي هو الصورة المكتملة لجبران: تجاربه كلها فيه, و كذلك عواطفه و أماله وأحلامه و أراؤه وصوفيته و فلسفته و نظراته"

n  “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophetn

This is a book that everyone should read at least once in his/her lifetime & when you finish it , read it all over again , because that one time won't do it justice.

Simply phenomenal.

How many times have I bought this and gifted it to friends or colleagues? probably a million times!

The prophet is a story of Almustafa who visits the city of Orphalese where the people of the city ask him to share wisdom about different topics like love, marriage, children, joy and sorrow, passion, pain, friendship, and many others, and he answers in such a beautiful philosophical way.

The Prophet, Al Mustafa, is about to board a ship after his exile of 12 years in Orphalese, to return to his home. Before he embarks, he is stopped by the towns people to impart some last wisdom.



This is a collection of 26 poetic essays that vary in subject from love, pain, friendship, giving and many more.

Growing up, our house was filled with Kahlil Gibran books. My parents have a huge collection of his works and have always encouraged me to give them a try. However I've always been a bit daunted and never knew exactly where to start. My mother suggested The Prophet.

I was so overjoyed when I received this copy, which came to me as a surprise.

My edition (the Alma Classics edition, published 2020) included illustrations by Gibran himself. I loved looking at them and they were such a great addiction to the poetry itself.

My heart felt full while reading this spiritual classic. The wisdom imparted spoke to me. And I feel like even if poetry isn't your thing you'd still find something in this book that speaks to you.

I highly recommend taking your time, savour it in small increments and reflect on each essay.


« Thank you to Jonathan Ball publishers for gifting me a copy »

I feel like a real spoil sport, but The Prophet strikes me as pretentious and overwrought. Kahlil Gibran is hoping to produce a work of wisdom for the ages (apparently many accept it as such), but so much is either obvious, wrong, meaningless, or inconsequential. Gibran's maxims, delivered through the mouth of "Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved" are reminiscent of (and likely emulating) Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. At times he reaches that level, and as a guidebook it has more concentrated wisdom than the Bible... but that is not a high bar. The best I can say about The Prophet is that it is harmless and occasionally beautiful.

The plot is a simple, clever one: a prophet has been waiting for years for a ship to come and bear him home. When it finally arrives, he heads toward the port, only to be surrounded by the people of Orphalese who beseech him for wisdom as he walks to the shore. Each chapter is scripturally structured, consisting of a broad question asked by some cipher of a townsperson and Almustafa's pontification in response. "Then a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses. And he answered and said..."

Sometimes the advice is beautiful. When speaking of marriage, the prophet says, "But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you." (There are truckloads of metaphors that rely on dancing, winds, wings, and music.) That would be fine, but then he restates the same point at least three times. "Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf." Yeah, we get it.

Other passages are simply nonsense, or nothing but pretty words that do not resolve into anything meaningful. I'm scanning the book looking for a good example. Here we go: "You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one." The owl analogy (anowlogy?) says the opposite of what he's positing. If you're supposed to seek the secret of death in the heart of life, then the owl should learn the secret of day by examining the night, yes? Life and death are one, as the river and sea are one? How so? How is that useful? It is purposely vague, which is the secret of effective scripture, but frustrating to my ears. It is a very short book, but I had to reach each passage multiple times to determine whether I could make any sense of the prophet's tortured phrases. He cops to this toward the end: "If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them. Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end, And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning. Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal. And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?"

What? No it isn't.

The Prophet is a cacophony of mixed metaphors and grandiose windbaggery. Many sentences are inverted, or expectations challenged, so the wisdom can be superficially presented as sage correction. "When you love you should not say, 'God is in my heart,' but rather, 'I am in the heart of God.'" WHOA. You said one thing, and then turned it around!

Anyway, you get the idea. There are lovely pieces of observation, but they are buried deep as jewels within a mountain shrouded by the toxic mists of confusion and error. See? I can make bad metaphors, too. The edition I read was accompanied by Gibran's illustrations, which remind me of William Blake's: mostly studies of bodies stacked next to each other in odd poses that likely have deep meaning for Gibran. If you want a fun way to experience this, you can see Roger Allers' 2014 animated rendition with Liam Neeson speaking as the prophet.