English Language and Literature Studies; Vol. 3, No. 4; 2013 ISSN 1925-4768 E-ISSN 1925-4776 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 13 Critical Reading of Gibran’s World in The Prophet Nidaa Hussain Fahmi Al-Khazraji 1,2 , Mardziah Hayati Abdullah 3 & Bee Eng Wong 3,4 1 Department of English Language, UPM, Malaysia 2 Department of English Language, Kerbala University, Iraq 3 Department of English Language, Modern Language and Communication, UPM, Malaysia 4 Department of Foreign Languages, UPM, Malaysia Correspondence: Nidaa Hussain Fahmi Al-Khazraji, Department of English Language, UPM, Malaysia; lecturer in Department of English Language, Kerbala University, Iraq. E-mail: nidaa62@gmail.com Received: September 22, 2013 Accepted: October 14, 2013 Online Published: November 24, 2013 doi:10.5539/ells.v3n4p13 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ells.v3n4p13 Abstract Gibran Khalil Gibran (1882-1931), the Lebanese writer, poet, artist and philosopher, was the bearer of faith in the unity of all religions. He was a key figure in the history of modern EnglishandArabic literature in early 20th Century.The present paper is to show how Gibran represents the world and undesirable social practices in the time of writing his greatest book The Prophet (1923). Gibran lets the readers fell that the prophet (Al-Mustafa) doesn’t belong to this very world; he comes to Orphalese to teach humanity and to correct the society under the tenets of all major religious. Each character in The Prophet, except Al-Mustafa, resamples one member of the deformed society who seeks deliverance. Gibran shortens the process of life and its needs in the 28 texts allowing the readers take an active role to interpret and to dictate the context on oblique hints and innuendo. Gibran views the world as a place that lacks love and peace, where individuals’ life is depraved and corrupted. The most obvious, Gibran is speaking through the mouth of Al-Mustafa preaching many commandments, disciplines and rituals. Keywords: Gibran, The Prophet, world 1. Introduction Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet (Gibran, 1923), is a volume of twenty-eight prose-poems full of wise sayings, representing wisdom of a prophetic quality. Each chapter in The Prophet is, in a sense, complete in itself; it presents Gibran’s views on some aspects of life or other problems of universal interest. Gibran calls for a utopian city by giving treatments to each issue in life. He presents an image of a world not yet in existence. The principles of his message are taken from all religions. Al-Mustafa’s desire for teaching, guidance, and support encourages his followers as well as people all over the world to form the social and moral conception of God. He is preaching his wise messages friendly not forcefully by persuading his followers and his readers. It seems that Gibran tries to resolve cultural and human conflict by transcending the barriers of East and West (Buck, 2010; Acocella, 2008). In addition, out of his influence by the Eastern philosophy, Gibran adopts the belief in the prevalence of God as a spirit in all parts of the universe. Bushrui asserts that the language of The Prophet represents the unity in diversity as “a passionate belief in the healing power of universal love and the unity of being” (Bushrui, 1987, p. 68). Like Blake, Gibran thinks that there is an entire human soul distributed to partial souls, and that man is an entity in his soul as well as in his body, and that God rests in the mind and moves in the air. Irwin (1998) points out that the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) announced Gibran as: “the Blake of the 20th century” (Irwin, 1998, p. 1). Gibran told his closest friend Mikhail Naimy: “I shall be happy when men shall say about me what they said of Blake: “‘he is a madman’. Madness in art is creation. Madness in poetry is wisdom. Madness in search for God is the highest form of worship” (Naimy, 1950, p. 89). The reflection of Gibran’s ideology and thoughts on this particular book might be the cause of its popularity. 2. Gibran’s World To show Gibran’s ideology in presenting the world, it would be worth to know the undesirable social practices in the time of writing his greatest book The Prophet. The term ideology here is not designated to view his political ideology only but it is “representations of the world which contribute to establishing, maintaining or changing social relations of power or domination” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 87; N. Fairclough, 2003, p. 9).