Kahlil Gibran: Spirits Rebellious - eBook

"Hear us, Oh Liberty;

Bring mercy, Oh Daughter of Athens;

Rescue us, Oh Sister of Rome;

Advise us, Oh Companion of Moses;

Help us, Oh Beloved of Mohammed;

Teach us, Oh Bride of Jesus;

Strengthen our hearts so we may live;

Or harden our enemies so we may perish

And live in peace eternally."

This eBook is full of these amazing short stories about individuals being true to themselves against the social order to follow their bliss.

A book at that time was so powerful it was burned in the marketplace of Beirut at the time of its publication, Kahlil Gibran’s Spirits Rebellious is a clarion call for freedom in his homeland of Lebanon—for individuals and society. Gibran’s bitter denunciation of religious and political injustice flows through his lyric pen in three parables, that of “Madame Rose Hanie,” “The Cry of the Graves,” and “Kahlil the Heretic.” His vision of liberty is no less powerful today.

This eBook is a set of four short stories bound together as Spirits Rebellious. (1) Soon after the publication of the original Arabic version of Spirits Rebellious at the turn of the century, considerable agitation developed. The book was publicly burned in the Beirut market place by Maronite Church and Ottoman State officials who judged it fiercely dangerous to the peace of the country. Gibran's bitter denunciation of both religious and political injustice brought his anticipated exile from the country. He was also excommunicated from the Church, which can be considered serious in a country where much civil identity and justice was based on religious membership - not to mention the popular idea that God did not allow excommunicated souls into his Heaven.

It was the short story "Khalil the Heretic" that set off the religious and political authorities. It is not easy when reading the story today, to see why the authorities got upset, but all book burning needs to be seen in the context of the day. "Khalil the Heretic" is worth reading today, both as an example of the early Arabic writing of Gibran and of what attacks on church and state at the same time may cost. It is better to attack one at a time, not both together.

"Khalil the Heretic" has some of the same structure as the later and better-known The Prophet: a person asks questions of the key figure who replies. In The Prophet, the answers are those of a mature man who reflects on his life experience in a calm voice. In "Khalil the Heretic", the heretic figure Khalil is first asked by a young women, Rachel, why he has left the monastery where he was working, and later is questioned by a Sheik in a hostile confrontation.

In the short story, Sheik Abbas is the symbol of the political authority and Father Elias the Church. They are united to share power among them for, as Gibran writes" In Lebanon, that mountain rich in sunlight and poor in knowledge, the nobel and the priest joined hands to exploit the farmer who ploughed the land…Since the beginning of the creation and up to our present time, certain clans, rich by inheritance, in cooperation with the clergy, had appointed themselves the administrators of the people. It is an old gaping wound in the heart of society that cannot be removed except by intense removal of ignorance."

Khalil ends his speech to the Sheik with a call for liberty. "Oh Liberty, hear us, and speak in behalf of but one individual for a great fire is started with a small spark. Oh Liberty, awake but one heart with the rustling of they wings, for from one cloud alone comes the lightning which illuminates the pits of the valleys and the tops of the mountains."

By the time Khalil Gibran died in 1931, he had lived most of his life in the USA and wrote in English. The Prophet had been first published in 1923 and has always remained in print - read at countless weddings and funerals. By 1931, the Ottoman Empire had broken, and Lebanon was part of greater Syria. Gibran had been taken back into communion with the Maronites who did not want to leave the best-known Lebanese poet out in the cold. But Gibran was never a very orthodox Catholic. He was attracted to the person and sayings of Jesus but not to the organization. He also knew Buddhist literature and appreciated it for the same reason: useful advice on how to live.

Look inside

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