A Man from Lebanon Nineteen Centuries Afterward, The Syrian World, 3, 5, November 1928, 21–26 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Abu al-`Ala Ahmad al-Ma`ari: Kama Yatasawwirahu Jibran Khalil Jibran. Naqlan `an Ahad Dafatirihi al-`Atiqah [Drawing]; Abu al-`Ala Ahmad al-Ma`ari [Article], al-Funun 1, no. 6 (September 1913), pp. 57-58 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

A fourth collection of Gibran’s Arabic stories and prose poems, al-’Awasif (The Storms or The Tempests), came out in Cairo in 1920. The contents dated from 1912 to 1918 and had been published in al-Funun and Mir’at al-gharb (Mirror of the West), an immigrant newspaper. It consists of thirty-one pieces that are generally harsher in tone than the sketches and stories of the three earlier collections. In the title story the narrator is curious about Yusuf al-Fakhri, a hermit who abandoned society in his thirtieth year to live alone on Mount Lebanon. Driven to the hermit’s cell by a storm, he is surprised to find such comforts as cigarettes and wine. The hermit tells the narrator that he did not flee the world to be a contemplative but to escape the corruption of society. In “‘Ala bab al-haykal” (At the Gate of the Temple) a man asks passersby about the nature of love. The powerful “al-’Ubudiya” (Slavery) catalogues the forms of human bondage throughout history. In “al-Shaytan” (Satan) a priest finds the devil dying by the side of the road; Satan persuades the priest that he is necessary to the well-being of the world, and the clergyman takes him home to nurse him back to health. Several other stories deal with the political themes that had concerned Gibran during the war.

Al-'Ubudiyah [Slavery], Mira'at al-Gharb, vol. 13 no. 1420, September 13, 1911, Part II, p. 1 , Part II, p. 1 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Al-Ajnihah al-Mutakassirah [Broken Wings], New York: Mir'at al-Gharb, 1912 [owned by Mary Elizabeth Haskell; inscribed by the Author]. In 1912 Gibran published al-Ajniha al-mutakassira, which he seems to have written several years earlier. The novella is his only attempt at a sustained narrative. When he was eighteen, the narrator fell in love in Beirut with Salma Karama. Forced by her father to marry an archbishop’s nephew, Salma was able to meet her lover occasionally until they were discovered together. Salma was then confined to her home and eventually died in childbirth. Reviews in the Arabic press were strongly positive, though there were some reservations about the character of Salma and Gibran’s views on the position of Arab women. The book led to a correspondence with the Syrian writer May Ziyada that evolved into an epistolary love affair.

Al-Bada’i’ wa al-tara’if (Best Things and Masterpieces), a collection of thirty-five of Gibran’s pieces, was published in Cairo in 1923. The works had been selected by the publisher, and the collection is uneven and miscellaneous. It includes several short articles on major Arab thinkers, illustrated with portraits drawn from Gibran’s imagination, and prose poems and sketches of the sort familiar from his earlier collections. Two pieces are of more interest than the others. “Safinat al-dubab” (A Ship in the Mist) is a strange romantic short story. A lonely young man dreams of a woman who visits him continually in his sleep and is his wife in spirit. When he is sent to Venice, he finds her; but she has just died. Iram, dhat al-’imad (Iram, City of Lofty Pillars) is a one-act play set in a city mentioned in the Qur’an. A young scholar, Najib Rahma, comes to the mysterious city seeking a prophetess, Amina al-’Alawiya, who is said to have visited there. He first meets her disciple, the dervish Zayn al-’Abidin; then Amina al-’Alawiya appears and expounds a monistic mystical philosophy.

al-Bahr al-A`zam [Short Story], Ughniyat al-Layl [Poem], al-Khansa’ [Drawing], al-Funun 2, no. 10 (March 1917), pp. 885-887; 931-933 [digitized by The American University of Beirut, AUB, Lebanon].

al-Banafsajah al-Tamuhah [Short Story], al-Mu`tamad Ibn `Abbad [Drawing], al-Funun 3, no. 1 (August 1917), pp. 1-6; 73 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

al-Falaki [Short Story], al-Funun 2, no. 8 (January 1917), p. 673 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

al-Hakiman [Short Story], Bayna al-Fasl wa-al-Fasl [Short Story], Ibn al-Muqaffa` [Drawing], al-Funun 3, no. 4 (November 1917), pp. 275-276; 297 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

al-Layl wa-al-Majnun [Short Story], `Umar Ibn al-Farid, al-`Arif bi-Allah Sharaf al-Din [Drawing], al-Farid [Essay], al-Funun 2, no. 2 (July 1916), pp. 97-99; 152; 153-4 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

In 1919 Gibran published 'al-Mawakib.' He had written it during summer vacations in Cohasset, Massachusetts, in 1917 and 1918 but wanted to bring it out in an elegant illustrated edition on heavy stock that was unavailable in wartime. It is a two-hundred-line poem in traditional rhyme and meter comprising a dialogue between an old man and a youth on the edge of a forest. The old man is rooted in the world of civilization and the city; the youth is a creature of the forest and represents nature and wholeness. The old man expresses a gloomy philosophy to which the carefree youth gives optimistic responses. Some critics noted the irregularities in the Arabic; Gibran’s haphazard education meant that his Arabic, like his English, was never perfect. Conservative reviewers objected to the poem’s solecisms, but Mayy Ziyada dismissed them as expressions of the poet’s independence. The work immediately became popular, especially as a piece to be sung. It is one of the great examples of mahjari (immigrant) poetry and pioneered a new form of verse in Arabic.

al-Nabī [The Prophet], Translated into Arabic by Antūniyūs Bashīr, al-Qāirah: al-Maṭbaʻah al-Raḥmānīyah bi-Miṣr, 1926.

al-Namalat al-Thalath [Poem], al-Kalb al-Hakim [Poem], al-Funun 2, no. 9 (February 1917), pp. 781-782 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

al-Samm fi al-Dasim [Short Story], al-Funun 2, no. 6 (November 1916), pp.  481-486 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

al-Sha`ir: Uqaddimuha ilá (M. M.) [Poem], Ilá al-Muslimin min Sha`ir Masihi [Essay], al-Funun 1, no. 8 (November 1913), pp. 1-3; 37-39 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

al-`Asifah [Short Story], al-Ghazzali [Essay and Drawing], al-Funun 3, no. 2 (September 1917), pp. 81-95; 143-144 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Alá Bab al-Haykil [Short Story], Ya Zaman al-Hubb [Poem], al-Funun 1, no. 3 (June 1913), pp. 17-21; 36-37 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Alice Raphael, The Art of Kahlil Gibran, The Seven Arts, March, 1917, pp. 531-534

Allah [Short Story], al-Funun 2, no. 11 (April 1917), pp. 989-990 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Ameen Rihani [Amīn Fāris al-Rīḥānī], Ilà Jubrān [To Gibran], Hutāf al-awdiyah: shiʻr manthūr [Hymn of the Valleys: Prose Poems], Bayrūt: Dār al-Rīḥānī lil-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 1955, pp. 123-136.

"The Book of Khalid" by Ameen Rihani is considered to be the first novel by an Arab-American writer in English. The story is often seen as an influence on Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet." The novel is divided into three books, dedicated in order 'to Man,' 'to Nature,' and 'to God.' Each section begins and ends with an illustration by Gibran, who is also the author of the Arabic calligraphy on the frontispiece of the book ('Kitab Khalid, 1911').

John G. Moses, Annotated Index to The Syrian World, 1926-1932, with the assistance of Eugene Paul Nassar, edited by Judith Rosenblatt, Saint Paul, Minnesota: University of Minnesota - Immigration History Research Center, 1994.

Anti wa-Ana [Poem], al-Funun 1, no. 9 (December 1913), p. 70 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Ayyuha al-Layl [An Ode to the Night], al-Funun 1, no. 1 (April 1913), pp. 1-4  [owned by Mary Elizabeth Haskell; inscribed by the Author].

Bi-al-Ams [Poem], al-Funun 2, no. 7 (December 1916), pp. 589-590 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Bi-Allah Ya-Qalbi [Poem], Majnun Layla [Drawing], al-Funun 2, no. 3 (August 1916), pp. 211-2; 258 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Birkat al-Dam [Drawing], Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi [Drawing], al-Funun 1, no. 7 (October 1913), pp. 33; 65 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA]. 

Critics, The Syrian World, 2, 10, April 1928, p. 34 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Defeat [poem], The Syrian World, 3, 7, January 1929, p. 23 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Exhibition of Drawings [Catalogue], New York: M. Knoedler & Co., February 19-March 3, 1917.

Exhibition: Forty Wash-Drawings by Kahlil Gibran [Catalogue], New York: M. Knoedler & Co., January 29-February 10, 1917.

Exhibition: Pictures by Kahlil Gibran [Catalogue], New York: Montross Gallery, December 14-30, 1914.

Fame, translated by Andrew Ghareeb, The Syrian World, 3, 10, April 1929, p. 28 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Freedom and Slavery [poem], The Syrian World, 6, 6, February 1932, p. 43 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Gibran’s Message to Young Americans of Syrian Origin (reprinted from the first issue of Syrian World), The Syrian World, 5, 8, April 1931, pp. 44–45 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

___________

The issue is especially long as it was published the same month famed poet and contributor to the Syrian World, Kahlil Gibran, passed away. There are only just a few inclusions in the article that are not related to Gibran's passing. The first is an article discussing the concept of chivalry in Arabia and Islam. This article primarily deals with the origin of chivalry, which seems to point to the crusades in which Moslem and Christian knights met in combat. Salloum Mokarzel in addition to his tribute work to Gibran is featured for the continuation of his travels through Jebel-Druze. There is then the usual installment of Ali Zaibaq, now a regular series of The Syrian World, and finally there is the inclusion of what usually closes the issues out, the political developments in Syria and excerpts from the Arab press. However intermingled within the regular stories, are works dedicated to Gibran. First there is a discussion of his last days, followed by a description of his Boston funeral. The remainder of the pieces are works by other authors normally featured in the Syrian World, and while the rest pay tribute to one of the most important Lebanese literary figures of all time.

In 1928 Gibran published his longest book, Jesus, the Son of Man: His Words and His Deeds as Told and Recorded by Those Who Knew Him.Jesus had appeared in Gibran’s writings and art in various forms; he told Mary Haskell that he had recurring dreams of Jesus and mentioned wanting to write a life of Jesus in a 1909 letter to her. The book was written in a little over a year in 1926-1927. Haskell edited the manuscript. Seventy-eight people who knew Jesus—some real, some imaginary; some sympathetic, others hostile—tell of him from their own points of view. Anna is puzzled by the worship of the Magi. An orator is impressed by Jesus’ rhetoric. A merchant sees the parable of the talents as the essence of commerce and cannot understand why Jesus’ followers insist that he is a god. Pontius Pilate discusses the political factors leading to his decision to execute Jesus. Barabbas is tormented by the knowledge that he is alive only because Jesus died in his place. It was the most lavishly produced of Gibran’s books, with some of the illustrations in color. For once, the reviews were strongly and uniformly favorable, and the book has remained the most popular of his works next to The Prophet.

Kahlil Gibran: A Self-Portrait, Translated from the Arabic and Edited by Anthony R. Ferris, New York: The Citadel Press, 1959.

Kitab Dam'ah wa Ibtisama [A Book of Tears and Mirth], New York: Atlantic Press, 1914 [owned by Mary Elizabeth Haskell; inscribed by the Author].

In 1914 Nasib 'Aridah, the editor of al-Funun, published this collection of fifty-six of Gibran’s early newspaper columns (known in English as 'A Tear and a Smile' or 'Tears and Laughter'); most are a page or two long, and the volume as a whole comprises about a hundred pages. For the most part they are prose poems: painterly expositions of a vivid image or story fragments. The themes are love, spirituality, beauty, nature, and alienation and homecoming. Typical are “Hayat al-hubb” (The Life of Love), portraying the seasons of love of a man and a woman from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, and “Amama ‘arsh al-jamal” (Before the Throne of Beauty), in which the goddess of nature tells the poet how she was worshiped by his ancestors and counsels him to commune with nature in wild places. Gibran feigned reluctance to republish these pieces on the grounds that he had moved beyond them. They are not especially deep, but they have a freshness and the moral and aesthetic earnestness that was always Gibran’s strength in his writing and his art. The collection was dedicated to Haskell using her initials, “M.E.H.”

Mayy Ziyadah, Rasaʼil Mayy [Letters of Mayy Ziyadah to various recipients, including Kahlil Gibran], Beirut: Dar Bayrut, 1954.

Naimy's only volume of collected poems appeared as late as 1945. It includes 44 poems and 4 drawings by the Author. One of the poems (If but Thorns Realized, pp. 28-29) is illustrated by a pencil drawing by Kahlil Gibran. In the drawing is a patch of rough, prickly bramble. Just outside the patch and all by itself stands a white lily with a long stalk. In the bramble and agonizingly caught by the thorns are a number of naked men hopelessly in search of the lily whose smell they detect but whose place they cannot identify. Near the lily and just outside the thorny patch stands a man giant. His back to the men and the thorns, and his head soaring high until it touches the clouds, he is able to see the flower and puts his right hand gently over it.

Night and the Madman (From "The Madman"), The Seven Arts, November, 1916, pp. 32-33.

On Giving and Taking, The Syrian World, 4, 7, March 1930, p. 32 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

On Giving and Taking, The Syrian World, 5, 2, October 1930, p. 38 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Poems from the Arabic (The Two Hermits, My Friend, The Three Ants, God), The Seven Arts, May, 1917, pp. 64-67.

Qabla al-Intihar: Safhah Matwiyah min Dafatir Haffar al-Qubur al-Qadimah [Short Story], al-Funun 1, no. 5 (August 1913), p. 1-3 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Qard al-Hurriyah [Essay], al-Umam wa-Dhawatuha [Essay], al-Funun 3, no. 8 (August 1918), pp. v-ix; 561-5 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

Rasaʼil Jubran [Letters of Kahlil Gibran], Introduction by Jamil Jabr, Beirut: Manshurat Maktabat Bayrut, 1951.

Ru’ya [Short Story], al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Mulaqqab bi-Abi Nuwas [Drawing], Ya Nafs [Poem], al-Funun 2, no. 1 (June 1916), pp. 1-3; 65; 70-71 [digitized by the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA].

An-Nashi’a (The New Generation) was a comprehensive monthly literary magazine dedicated to the advancement of scientific and cultural life in post-World War I Iraq. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in that war, Iraq was placed under a League of Nations mandate administered by the British. In 1921, a monarchy was established, and the country went on to gain independence from Britain in 1932. An-Nashi’a was founded at the beginning of the monarchy, and its first editorial declared that the new publication was a response to the needs of the new nation. Only three issues (called parts) appeared before An-Nashi’a ceased publication. The magazine was owned by Ibrahim Salih; its editor-in-chief was Hassan al-Bayati. Each issue started with long essays on a wide range of issues covering literature, science, arts, philosophy, history, new discoveries, lifestyle, and other news and anecdotes from around the world, especially from America. Examples of topics covered included the value of learning; sea life, minerals, and other resources; poets and poems; lessons from history, which cited Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar; sports, and particularly how American newspapers dedicated many pages on a daily basis to news about sports; the “don’ts” of social etiquette; and “immortal words,” a collection of wisdom attributed to figures from around the world, including George Washington. Overall, the magazine had a progressive and worldly air, although it remained anchored in Arabic culture. The last page was typically “from management” and was dedicated to correcting typographical errors, with apologies to the readers. In addition to the owner and the editor-in-chief, contributing writers included some of the leading pan-Arab intellectuals at that time, such as Iraqi Kurdish poet and philosopher Jamīl Ṣidqi Zahawi, Egyptian writer and essayist Mustafa Lutfi Manfaluti, Turkish-Egyptian poet Waliy ud-Deen Yakun, and Lebanese-American writer and artist Kahlil Gibran.