"Not since the Arabian Nights had a writer of Arab descent enjoyed such universal appeal and The Prophet, the "strange little book" as he called it, went on to outsell all others in the twentieth century except the Bible. It had taken Gibran many years to assiduously perfect the unity of a message which he mirrored through text and pictures, an expression of the "sacredness" of his "inner life", and it came as no surprise to those around him when he was mentioned in the same breath as William Blake. At the heart of this "strange little book" it is the message that while love can be wounding and painful, it can also lift to ecstasy. Truth, liberation and union with the Supreme Identity which is Love, is possible through aspiration and yearning. "Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self", says Almustafa in one sermon - the insistence being on the essential identity of love and pain, which evidently contained real personal significance for Gibran.

The grief and alienation experienced by the hypersensitive youth had laid its stamp on him, attuning his subconscious to the "most delicate light and shade" and prompting him to sing with the eloquence of Isaiah and the sorrow of Jeremiah. One critic described Gibran's work as being "dipped in blodd...a cry burstng through a wounded heart", and asked of those who wish to understand him to "imagine for themselves what a degree of pain it would require to inspire them as did that suffering which so inspired Gibran.

 

For many The Prophet represented the height of Gibran's literary career and given its importance in his oeuvre it is not surprising that some critics thought his works leading up to it were exploratory, even rudimentary. But another view takes his Arabic works, such as Iram, The City of Lofty Pillars, published in 1921 two years before the Prophet, and his English work, such as the Madman, on their own terms by giving due regard in Iram to the explortion of the Sufi principle of the Unity of Being  and in the Madman to the elevation of the outsider-poet-seer.

There is no doubt that the Prophet occupies a unique place in world literature, which makes an assessment of its true value a difficult task for the critic. Often unjustly branded as a romanticised version of universal philosophical and religious teachings, it has in some ways been victim of its own astonishing success. The reality is that it is a work of remarkable compassion, insight and hope, with a timeless message, phrased with a simplicity and rhythmical quality that renders its accessible to a wide readership. 

 

Gbran is the most successful and famous Arab writer in the world. Despite the comfort offered by technological achievements and the insights afforded by analysis (and the benefits of either are much disputed), the modern psyche still has a wound in its soul. Gibran's message is a healing one and his quest to understand the tensions between spirit and exile anticipated the needs of an age witnessing the spiritual and intellectual impasse of modernity itself. His writings reveal the penetrating vision of seer, who, without crusading or preaching, warned of the terrible dangers that befall an epoch intent on borderconsciousness, material greed and blistering yet blind change. The wisdom set forth in the form of a simple, lyrical beauty and a profound depth of meaning, for all who endeavour to seek it, applies with striking timelessness to the momentous challenges we face today" 

 

- Joe Jenkins