How (Islamic) Mysticism Shaped Kahlil Gibran's Universal Philosophy
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
7 June 2022
All
Three Greatest Modern Mystics of the Last Century, Tagore, Iqbal and Gibran,
Were Heavily Influenced By Islamic Mysticism
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There's
hardly an educated person who hasn't heard the name of Lebanese-American Kahlil
Gibran. Even if you've not read through his masterpiece The Prophet, Bible of
the counterculture, I'm sure, you must have flipped through its pages,
cursorily going through a few passages that could move you the way Misri
Qira'at (Egyptian way of Quranic recitation) can bring tears even to the eyes
of a non-believer through its euphonic cadences.
Though
brought up as a Maronite Christian, Kahlil was syncretic in his approach to
religion and believed in the unity of all three Abrahamic faiths, nay, of all
religions. It's rather interesting to note that all three greatest modern
mystics of the last century, Tagore, Iqbal and Gibran, were heavily influenced
by Islamic mysticism.
While
Tagore, a fringe Hindu as he belonged to the Brahmo Samaj, Iqbal was initially
a latitudinarian, who unfortunately became a rabid Muslim towards the fag-end
of his life, Kahlil almost expunged his religious denomination and identity
after the age of 30.
It's said
of him that he took love from Hafiz, empathy from Rumi, wisdom from Attar,
observation from Sanai, discernment from Khaqani, piety from Nizami, spiritual
indifference and playful flippancy from Omar Khayyam, candour from Anwari and
language of silence from Bedil. In other words, Kahlil's existence enshrined
and entombed the exquisiteness of mysticism.
At this
juncture when almost every day, we're fighting over petty religious issues and
unsuccessfully finding modern science, Genetics (!) and Space technology in our
Holy but utterly irrelevant Books, it's time to delve into Khalil's The
Prophet, The Madman, Broken Wings, Spirits Rebellious, Sand and Foam, The
Procession, among others. No pontification, but when I see people of all
faiths pray (sorry, most of them beg) like an ineluctable daily chore and as a
hardwired and indoctrinated practice since childhood, I remember Gibran's pithy
words on prayers: Your life itself is a prayer; which's a paraphrasal
permutation of Rumi's ' Your nobility is your prayer.' When Khalil says, '
What's prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether, ' I thank myself
for never having prayed in my whole life, rather I always strove to expand
myself into the vastness of the cosmos.
I remember,
when my Arabic-Persian professor and mentor, Dr Zaifa Ashraf was preparing to
bid au revoir to the world at Marsden
Cancer Hospital, London, she was reading Gibran's ' Thoughts and Meditations
'(1960). A lifelong apatheist, she feebly smiled, held my hand and told me, '
it's my prayer ' and she closed her eyes forever. When Kahlil thinks a la Sanai
and says, “You are my brother, and I love you. I love you when you bow in your
mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of
one religion, and it is the spirit, " you go beyond the awful limitations
of religions and feel the Synchronicity of Mankind (to use C G Jung's phrase
from his '“Universal Patterns of Collective Unconscious”.
Can we ever
forget this gem of a thought that ensued from Kahlil's magical quill on the
page of life and spirituality, "Is not religion all deeds and all
reflection, and that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a
surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend
the loom?"
At this
juncture, when religion, violence, god, rancour, nation, ill-will and all
trifling ideas have swept the underdeveloped humans off their feet, Kahlil's
books are the greatest and profoundest scriptures that talk of love, humanity,
compassion and submission and NEVER claim in an exasperatingly megalomaniac way
that I'M THE WAY and WORSHIP ONLY ME AND NO OTHER GOD/S. What rubbish! Humans
have forgotten the language of love, reason and silence. We all collectively
need to read Kahlil's mystical outpourings to become humane and empathise with
our fellow humans.
----
An
occasional columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in
comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed
articles to world's premier publications in several languages including
Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/islamic-mysticism-kahlil-gibran-philosophy/d/127188
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