Kahlil Gibran and the Master

Kahlil Gibran was a celebrated Lebanese poet and painter who happened to live across the street from Juliet Thompson, who knew him quite well. He worked on an Arab newspaper which left him free to paint and write. He read Juliet all his books while they were still in manuscript.

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Gibran told her that when he wrote The Son of Man he thought of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá all through, and that he was going to write another book with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at the center. Gibran learned about the Faith from Juliet, and got hold of some of the Arabic writings of Bahá’u’lláh, and said it was the most stupendous literature that ever was written.

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When Juliet told him that the Master was coming, he asked if she would request the Master to sit for him. The Master gave him one hour, at 6:30 one morning. Juliet said, “He made an outstanding head. It doesn’t look like the Master—very faint likeness. Great power through the shoulders. A great radiance in the face.”

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Gibran adored the Master and would often come to Juliet’s house to see Him. After the Master left he settled down to writing his books. He talked about the Master often, “most sympathetically and most lovingly,” but he could not accept an intermediary for himself; he wanted his own direct contact with God.

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Years later Gibran went to the Bahá’í Center when the Master’s motion picture was going to be shown. When he saw the Master on the screen, he began to sob. Juliet recalled: “We had asked him to speak a few words that night.

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When the time came for him to speak, he controlled himself and jumped up on the platform and then, my dear, still weeping before us all he said: ‘I declare that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the Manifestation of God for this day!’ Of course he got it wrong—but….” Afterwards he took her two hands and said, “You have opened for me a door tonight.”

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He was deeply moved by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, even though he did not understand the Master’s station. As Marzieh Gail’s note to Juliet’s account explains, Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb are the two Manifestations of God for today; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the Exemplar and Interpreter of the Bahá’í Faith.

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*Sources: “Juliet Remembers Gibran,” as told to Marzieh Gail, World Order, Summer 1978 (vol. 12, no. 4), pp. 29–31; Earl Redman, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Their Midst, p. 75*

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