by Lidya Sin

Created on: September 12, 2009

"And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless."

The quotation above is from one of the prose in The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, about Self-Knowledge. The Prophet is the best and most famous work of Khalil Gibran, an American Lebanese artist, author and poet. The book is considered one of classic literature in many countries, including America and Lebanon and has inspired many artists and writers. It was one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century in the United States.

Khalil Gibran himself spent his childhood in poverty, and unable to receive formal education. He was familiar with Christianity and Islam, having a mother who was a Catholic Maronite and studying Islam and Arabic under the tutelage of visiting priests. He did not convert to any religion, however, but choose to believe that God resides in every religion and his work reflected his universal spiritualism. The Prophet is revered widely by Christians, Moslems, and every other religion too.

The Prophet is not a novel or a story book, instead it is a series of philosophical prose, with a back story about a prophet leaving the country he stayed and returned to his homeland. Each part is his farewell gift to the people. First part is his thought about Love, Marriage, Children, various of other issues, and the last is about Death.

I first read his work as an assignment in Human Philosophy class and fell in love with it ever since. His writings are beautiful and very naturalistic. Lovers of nature will fall in love with his writing with how he described nature and its beauty. He used many similes, metaphors, and other figurative speeches.

His philosophical views in the Prophet are universal, and contain wisdom and thought provoking questions, either you agree with it or not. There is nothing cynical or ironic in The Prophet. Reading it feels very peaceful, as if you were sitting in the meadow and felt the breeze playing with your hair, just like one of his description in the book.

Not every one will like it, however. His writing is very Eastern, sometimes contain too many metaphors than necessary. People might disagree with him with his views in some parts of the book. If you are looking for characterization or plot, you will be sorely disappointed. The Prophet is like Proverbs; its main purpose is to share advice and the author's philosophical views to the readers.

The Prophet is a valuable read that will both enrich your life and help you enhance your spirituality, no matter what belief you might have. If you don't like it either because of its style or its fundamental belief, you'll still find it a worthy to deepen your knowledge about Eastern philosophy and spirituality.

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