I am torn between loving this book and wanting to make fun of it. Lets have the fun first. From Jen, the prophet-

On laughter:

And now, why do you snicker, or sniggle, or cough aloud
when a wrong happens? The mouth of the unjust is eternally in riot, it delights to bare the teeth and pull back the unclean lips.


As Bram pointed out there are definite subtexts here...this is my genius, of course. I meant to be all subtexty and such. Ha.


I loved this book. Loved it. When I read it, alone, it was wonderful, magical, and definitely wisdom for me. I can imagine that when read in a group, aloud, with half the people mumbling and checking their watches to see if the local eatery is open yet, it might become as dry as burned toast, just like most communal readings of the bible. Then the mystery is gone, the poetic appreciation is lost, and one is left to peek at others out of a corner of the eye while reciting and trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. This book is not a to do list, a literal map of how all can to get from one place to another shared space philosophically or spiritually. We all come to the reading with different clothing in our baggage, and it is unreasonable to think that we will all end up in the same end location. If I packed a snowsuit I won't be quite as ready for Hawaii as those who shoved, say, a bikini in their bag. Even if Hawaii sounds nice, it seems that I would be better suited for the slopes. I digress, as usual. I want to think on these things:

"Who can separate his hours before him, saying 'This for God and this for myself; This is for my soul, and this other for my body?' All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self."

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man. And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth."

And this line is a new favorite: "And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair."

So, I loved this book but understand that some see it as little more than a very long Helen Steiner Rice card. Go ahead, make fun. I was tempted to give in and let my sarcasm auto-pilot take over too. But I'm glad I didn't. This time, instead of playing the cynic, I'm going to delight the earth with my bare feet.

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.

54 sayfalık dev kitap.
El Mustafa yıllardır beklediği gemiye binip yaşadığı yerden uzaklaşacakken halk ona merak ettiklerini sorup El Mustafa'dan hakikati isterler. Bunun üzerine sorulan her soruya karşılık öğütler alırlar.
Aşk, acı, özgürlük, suç ve ceza, dostluk, ölüm ve daha bir çok konu.
Dostluk ile suç ve ceza kısmını ayrı bir sevdim ben. Altını çizmek istemediğim tek bir yer bile olmadı desem yeridir. Ama en önemlisi yazarı sevdim.
Ermiş ara ara açıp bakacağım tam bir başucu kitabı oldu benim için.

This has been sitting on my shelves unread for over 12 years. Having read it now, I'm not so sure I should have changed that.
There were a few surprisingly "untraditionalist" bits when it came to guidelines for social relations of various types. But the main part of the book was spent on esotericism and "common sense" platitudes dressed up in shiny poetic (and lengthy) phrases. I was briefly amused by how "date-able" this was because of the author dragging in ether theories.
All in all, off you go now, little Prophet - go play with The Little Prince in the section for the inexplicably over-praised...

The richness of his poetic prose and its inherent musicality is what I take with me from Al-Mustafá, Gibran’s famous Prophet.
There is also a universal spirituality that doesn’t succumb to the pressure of organized dogma that makes of this short fable a classic that might appeal to any reader regardless of his present, absent or muddled religious beliefs.
The roundness of the last chapter reminds me of the serene wisdom of the ancient aphorisms in The Tao Te Ching because it allows multiple interpretations that don’t compete against each other: philosophy and mysticism go hand in hand along the natural cycle of existence rather than being at odds in constant disparity of visions that often lead to uncertainty, and eventually, to corroding guilt.

Precious gifts arrive at the right moment and allow joy to coexist with misery, hope with despair, gratitude with frustration, without forcing us to choose one over the other. One door closes so that many others might be opened if we are courageous enough to persist, if we keep on walking. Accepting life as it comes with all its imperfect balances is far from easy and sometimes we crave for that comforting presence that will becalm the stirred waters of a troubled conscience, the disparate chorus of contradictory longings, the festering pain of unhealed wounds.
May you be fortunate to find that soothing voice that will appease storms within you, be it in the form of poetic allegory, unconditional support from those who truly care about you, or both; and be blessed, like I was, like I am.

This book is cool because it is an excellent display of how similar the world's religions truly are. When it comes down to it, they are really all the same and the differences are mainly aesthetic.

However, pretty much any person who has learned about many different religions is really going to come to the same conclusion. All the religions in the world are all compatible, because their entire purpose is to provide a belief system to help people in a society get along. The rules that make humans get along are all pretty similar regardless of culture, so the religions end up the same.

I would recommend this book to college boys who want to impress girls, because when I was reading it, girls seemed pretty impressed. Also, I would recommend it to teenagers who want to feel spiritual and deep. However, as you get older, you'll probably get far too jaded to appreciate it.

Lyrical, more like poetry or a collection of quotes than I expected
Poetical and with a clear focus on the duality of life, a prophet teaches life lessons about a multitude of topics too a city he is about to leave. The prose is lyrical and beautiful, highly quotable, but there is no story or development which made the book, however short, a bit tedious sometimes.

Still full very pretty and remarkably modern quotes; any self help guru of our current age would be jealous of:

“And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow”

“They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”- about kids

”Work is love made visible.”

“Your house is your larger body.”

“Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.”

“Your friend is your needs answered.”

“And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.”

“And your body is the harp of your soul.”

موعظة في المدينة الفاضلة.

يلقِّب البعض هذا الكتاب بإنجيل جبران. أعتقد أن هذا هو الوصف الأنسب لكتاب اقتبس كاتبه حروفه من نور سماوي.
ترجمة ثروت عكاشة جعلت النص العربي يبدو كأنه هو النص الأصلي الذي كُتب به الكتاب.

أحمد الديب
2008

تسجيل صوتي كامل ومفهرس للكتاب، على يوتيوب:
https://youtu.be/z4gMG3iUMmo
وعلى ساوندكلاود:
https://soundcloud.com/ahmadeddeeb/se...

"Ve o cevap verdi:
Sizler endazesiz ve ölçülemez zamanı ölçmek istersiniz.
Saatlere ve mevsimlere göre tavrınızı ayarlamak ve hatta ruhunuzun seyrini yönlendirmek istersiniz.
Bir dere yapmak istersiniz zamandan, kenarına oturduğunuz ve akışını seyrettiğiniz.

Ama içinizdeki zamansız olan, hayatın zamansızlığından haberdardır,
Ve bilir ki dün bugünün hatırasından başka bir şey değildir ve yarın da bugünün rüyası.

Ve içinizde terennüm ve tefekkür eden o, yıldızlara fezaya saçan o ilk anın hudutları içerisinde ikamet ediyor hala." (s.83)

"Yenen ilk çörek, insan türünün birliğini oluşturdu".

Der Prophet ist ein klassisches spirituelles Werk, welches viele wahre Worte und Weisheiten enthält, die mich aber nicht berührten, sondern die ich mehr oder weniger zur Kenntnis genommen habe. Ein Prophet mischt sich unter das Volk, er bekommt 24 Themen an den Kopf geworfen, die er mit einem jeweils kurzen Monolog philosophisch-humanistisch abhandelt. Erstaunlicherweise ist ein kein religiöses Buch, auch wenn man aufgrund des Handlungsortes im Orient und der alttestamentarischen Sprache des Propheten darauf schließen könnte. Doch der Prophet meidet die Erwähnung eines höheren göttlichen Wesens wie der Teufel das Weihwasser. Was der Autor vor 90 Jahren damit bezwecken wollte. Fast klingt es für mich so, als wenn er einen gemeinsamen Nenner der Nächstenliebe und des Verständnisses unter den Weltreligionen finden wollte. Vielleicht ist das auch der Grund, warum das Buch immer noch so populär ist (und vor allem in der Hippiezeit war).

Die Abhandlung über die Liebe klingt wie die Aussage im Kollosser-Brief. Die Abhandlung über Gesetz und Freiheit wie aus der Bergpredigt. Seine Aussagen zur Arbeit könnten aus dem Gleichnis der Arbeiter im Weinberg stammen. Da bleibe ich doch lieber beim Original. Für Menschen ohne Glauben könnte es gegebenfalls eine Möglichkeit zum Zugang zur Spiritualität sein.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is basically a set of poetic essays written in the form of a story. It starts with Al-Mustafa, the prophet, who waited for 12 years in the City of Orphalese for his ship, which had come to take him to the place he belonged to. Before boarding the ship, sadness holds him and he thinks of the time he spent there and how the city was grateful to him and now that he is leaving behind all this, which makes him feel a bit uneasy. While he is off to leave, he is stopped by the people of the city and is questioned about life and worldly affairs. And he answers (or rather confuses) all their questions in a poetic manner before bidding a farewell.

This is supposed to be a self-help book, to enlighten people with truth of the elements of life and death and it did enlighten me. Enlightened me to not go with the flow, the hype and the opinion of majority of people! I’m bitterly disappointed by this epitome of absurdity this book had to share with us, intending to throw some light on the vital themes of life with forced, pretentious, and philosophical writing.

While reading, most of the things discussed here were quite familiar to me and I could resonate much with it. Then I realized most of the parts covered in here were part of a subject in our elementary school, called ‘Value of Education’ wherein we were taught about mannerism, etiquette, life lessons, etc. derived from religious texts of Quran, Bible and Bhagwad Geeta. (Yes, we had such a thing in school!).
There! I see, that’s what my friend, Nadira had pointed out while we were discussing this book after I finished reading, that this work is more or less copied from religious texts and presented with exquisite word play to cover up for the content.

Most of the essays started well-off with beautiful narration, comparing matters of life to the cosmos, good to listen to, some poetry, some word play. But then as I read further it started to not make sense at all. 9/10 things in here are well-known to anyone reading the book before-hand and then there are sentences flowing so melodiously that tries to trap the reader to not focus on where this is going, more of what I feel an attempt to hypnotize him/her with utter nonsense. (Gibran did succeed in doing this to majority of people reading his work)

Here are some of the quotes which you can keep as your WhatsApp/Facebook status to look cool and philosophical on the internet! (Unless, you want to be called an idiot)

“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself, Love possesses not nor would it be possessed: For love is sufficient unto love.”
(I don’t know what he is taking about, but yes it’s poetic so I’m gonna assume it to be a form of Art and not comment about it)

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.”
(Okay! So, I was actually not sad when my kitten died last year , it was just me hiding my inner joy with the tears I shed)

“When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
(And what about someone who doesn’t believe in God?)

“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
(Yes, life and death are one… and The Earth is Flat!)

“God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.”
(I had something blasphemous to say about this, but then I don’t want to get stoned to death by the religious! :P)

“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.”
“Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
(I wonder, what did he smoke when he wrote these lines..!)

“What is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?”
(Okay! we are done here! This is mere bullshit!!)

I can go on and on but then this is not what I actually want to do right now! This book is full of all these kind of quotes which question you, rather than giving an unambiguous answer! Manipulating minds of the readers, to fall into the wordgasm which has nothing to offer but mere nonsensical words of wisdom! Plus, it has illustration by the author himself, in between the pages, to beautify the book maybe, that has nothing to do with the essays of wisdom & enlightenment! Is it some form of Art or some idiotic figures to divert the attentions of the readers? The author knows the best!

Irony is that this book has such a high rating on Goodreads ,I felt a bit awkward at my own-self for not liking it. But as I read some of the reviews, I found out that some didn’t get the supposed true meaning of it and want to read it a couple of times to truly understand it, yet a 5 star rating!! Kudos to that!