Friday, June 22, 2007

On Gibran and the Baha'i Faith: New Information?

I'm going to bring forward two comments from Montana Don regarding the recent post "On Gibran and the Baha'i Faith: Connection Noted". -gw

Today Montana Don said...
After leaving my comment, I contacted several scholars/historians, and they agreed with my assessment. One also pointed to a column in
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http://www.onecountry.org/e152/e15204as_Profile_Bushrui_story.htm

which discusses parts of this issue. Another pointed out that this collection includes materials that Baha'is have not had access to, and perhaps there are notes in his notebooks that do point to Baha'u'llah as partial inspiration for The Prophet.There are Baha'is who are already quite familiar with Princeton's Special Collections, and no doubt in the next couple years one of them will spend the time to investigate this possibility. -Don C

Yesterday Montana Don said...
I believe this is an urban legend, a Baha'i myth. Gibran was certainly aware of the Baha'i Faith, but I don't know of any documented evidence that he based the Prophet on Bahá'u'lláh. He did tell Juliet Thompson, who was his neighbor in NYC, that one of his books was inspired by Abdu'l-Baha; but that is as close a connection as I am aware of. -Don C

2 comments:

Bill said...

Dr. Suheil Bushrui, a foremost world authority on Gibran and also a Baha'i, would have a perspective on this question. Go take a look at his books about Gibran.

SMK said...

see some refs at wikipedia