What do you think?
Rate this book
The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart
Exquisite writings on love, marriage, and the spiritual union of souls add a fresh dimension to our understanding of the philosophy of love and the transformation of one's life through its all-encompassing power.
102 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
49 people are currently reading
798 people want to read
About the author
Kahlil Gibran
1,331 books15.1k followersKahlil Gibran (Arabic:
جبران خليل جبران
) was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer.
Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of Ottoman Mount Lebanon), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero.
He is chiefly known in the English-speaking world for his 1923 book The Prophet, an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic English prose. The book sold well despite a cool critical reception, gaining popularity in the 1930s and again, especially in the 1960s counterculture.
Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.
Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of Ottoman Mount Lebanon), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero.
He is chiefly known in the English-speaking world for his 1923 book The Prophet, an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic English prose. The book sold well despite a cool critical reception, gaining popularity in the 1930s and again, especially in the 1960s counterculture.
Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
Read
December 2, 2013خاک عاشقی می داند
گریه می کند،رنج می کشد
صبر می کند
سر به آستان مرگ می گذارد
بر شانه هایش گریه می کند
اما نمی میرد
خاک عاشقی صبور است
بر برگ های پاییز بوسه میزند
تقدیر جهان را عوض می کند
جوانه ها را بیدار و درخت ها را خواب می کند
اما خود
هرگز نمی خوابد
خاک عاشقی صبور است که سالها و سالها
برای آسمان صبر می کند
و من همانم که از خاک آمده ام
چون خاک
عاشقم و چون خاک،روزی صبوری را خواهم آموخت
گریه می کند،رنج می کشد
صبر می کند
سر به آستان مرگ می گذارد
بر شانه هایش گریه می کند
اما نمی میرد
خاک عاشقی صبور است
بر برگ های پاییز بوسه میزند
تقدیر جهان را عوض می کند
جوانه ها را بیدار و درخت ها را خواب می کند
اما خود
هرگز نمی خوابد
خاک عاشقی صبور است که سالها و سالها
برای آسمان صبر می کند
و من همانم که از خاک آمده ام
چون خاک
عاشقم و چون خاک،روزی صبوری را خواهم آموخت
February 4, 2019
It was beautiful and lyrical.
Loved this one:
Songs
In the depths of my soul there are songs unwilling to take the garb of words, songs living as seed in my heart. They will not flow with ink onto paper. Like a translucent veil, they are wrapped about emotions that can never flow sweetly on my tongue.
Yet how can I even whisper them when I fear what the particles of the æther may do to them? To whom shall I sing them when they have become accustomed to live in the house of my soul and fear the harshness of other ears?
Were you to look into my eye, you would see the image of their image. Were you to touch my fingertips, you would feel their quick movements.
The works of my hands reveal them as the lake reflects the twinkling of the stars. My tears disclose them as the mystery of the rose petal is disclosed at the moment the heat dissolves the drops of dew.
Loved this one:
Songs
In the depths of my soul there are songs unwilling to take the garb of words, songs living as seed in my heart. They will not flow with ink onto paper. Like a translucent veil, they are wrapped about emotions that can never flow sweetly on my tongue.
Yet how can I even whisper them when I fear what the particles of the æther may do to them? To whom shall I sing them when they have become accustomed to live in the house of my soul and fear the harshness of other ears?
Were you to look into my eye, you would see the image of their image. Were you to touch my fingertips, you would feel their quick movements.
The works of my hands reveal them as the lake reflects the twinkling of the stars. My tears disclose them as the mystery of the rose petal is disclosed at the moment the heat dissolves the drops of dew.
June 28, 2008
It makes me think how powerful & fearless Khalil Gibran's was to have wrtten on such themes. Imagine the upraor this book must have caused in the 1900's when they were first published in Arabic. His first and target audience was the Arabic world withen which women did not have the right or the freedom to choose their own partners.These themes still exist even to this day so it is easy to relate to all his writings.A great book of short stories.
July 27, 2013
باران رویاست
میان بالهای شب می خزد
به پنجره های بسته دست می کشد
و در میان رازها راه می رود
باران رویاست
آرزوها را صدا می کند
در کوچه های گذشته،قدم می زند
هیچ نمی پرسد
همه چیز را میداند...
باران رویاست
و رویاها
به بارانی شسته خواهد شد
تو نیز بارانی
میان رویاهای من،
تا صبحدم قدم میزنی
رازها را نوازش می کنی
هیچ نمی پرسی
همه چیز را می دانی...
September 22, 2007
very romantic! if you're looking for love poems this is the one
April 13, 2025
Of course, the various stories and poems in this collection vary in quality, but there are so many that are over-the-top wonderful that one can't help give five stars. At the very least, read the poignant yet tragic love story of Layla and Saleem in The Bridal Bed, made all the more dazzling by the fact that it is based on a true incident.
—Sosan, the girl whom the bride had sent as a messenger to her lover, came and stood by the priest. She looked at him with eyes drowning in tears. Bravely she said, ‘I will remain here, O blinded unbeliever. I will guard them until the dawn comes. I will dig them a grave beneath these hanging branches. If you will not give me a spade, I will scratch the earth with my fingers, and if you bind my arms, I will dig it with my teeth! Hurry and leave this place, this place filled with the scent of frankincense, for swine avoid the scent of pure perfumes and the thief dreads the owner of the house and the coming of the morning. Hurry to your dark beds. The angels’ songs that fill the air above these two martyrs to love do not reach you, for your ears are plugged with dirt.’
The people dispersed before the grim face of the priest. That girl remained, standing near the two still bodies like a watchful mother guarding her children in the stillness of the night.
When the crowd had gone and that place was empty, she gave herself over to weeping and grief.
Kahlil Gibran
—Sosan, the girl whom the bride had sent as a messenger to her lover, came and stood by the priest. She looked at him with eyes drowning in tears. Bravely she said, ‘I will remain here, O blinded unbeliever. I will guard them until the dawn comes. I will dig them a grave beneath these hanging branches. If you will not give me a spade, I will scratch the earth with my fingers, and if you bind my arms, I will dig it with my teeth! Hurry and leave this place, this place filled with the scent of frankincense, for swine avoid the scent of pure perfumes and the thief dreads the owner of the house and the coming of the morning. Hurry to your dark beds. The angels’ songs that fill the air above these two martyrs to love do not reach you, for your ears are plugged with dirt.’
The people dispersed before the grim face of the priest. That girl remained, standing near the two still bodies like a watchful mother guarding her children in the stillness of the night.
When the crowd had gone and that place was empty, she gave herself over to weeping and grief.
Kahlil Gibran
November 28, 2015
Maybe it's just the Lebanese in me, but I love this man's work. His rich, romantic way of describing life and his observations makes for an incredibly smooth read. You feel as if you've both gone over the moon and remained grounded on earth all at the same time. This is probably my favorite of his collections.
August 3, 2007
Gibran stays close to an idea that I've also read in Song of Songs 8:7 - If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
February 26, 2008
This book ponders the ideas, ideals, preconceptions, conceptions and longings of love. Gibran is a beautiful poet and thinker. 'Sand and Foam' led me to this read.
September 23, 2008
this book is incredibly beautifully written. love is real!
April 11, 2015
A soaring collection of poems, short stories and general musings on the subject of love. Impossible not to be inspired and swayed by Gibran's beautiful prose.
September 13, 2012
3,5/5 Κλασσικός Gibran!!
April 22, 2016
Beautifully translated.
CONTENTS
Introduction to the Penguin edition by Robin Waterfield
Introduction by John Walbridge
Note on Texts
At the Gate of the Temple
Night Songs
Songs
Rose Al-Hani
The Enchanting Spirit
The life of Love
In a Year Unrecorded in History
The Beloved
The Queen of Imagination
Words of Love
Communion
Among the Ruins
Before Suicide
A Smile and a Tear
A Dialogue of Spirits
The Bridal Bed
In the Name of God, My Heart
What is Hidden in Hearts
Daughters of the Sea
O Night
To the spirit that embraced my spirit, to the heart that poured its secrets into my heart, to the hand that kindled the fire of my emotions, I dedicate this book. - Gibran
This was Gibran's dedication of his collection Rebellious Spirits, in which the stories 'Rose al-Hani' and 'The Bridal Bed' appeared. It is addressed to his friend and patron Mary Haskell.
I purified my lips with sacred fire that I might speak of love, but when I opened my mouth to speak, I found myself mute.
I sang the melodies of a love I did not yet know, but when I came to know it, the words became a muffled whisper in my mouth, the songs in my breast a profound silence.
Will you not tell me what is this fire kindled in my breast? It consumes my faculties and melts my emotions and desires.
What are these invisible hands, soft yet coarse, that grip my spirit in my hours of solitude and loneliness? Into my heart they pour wine mixed with the bitterness of pleasure and the sweetness of pain.
What are these wings rustling about my couch in the silence of the night as I watch wakeful for what I know not, listening to what I do not hear, staring at what I do not see, pondering what I do not comprehend, aware of what I do not apprehend, sighing because in sighs are the groanings more beloved to me than the echoes of laughter and joy, submitting to an unseen power that slays me, then gives me life, then slays me again and again until dawn breaks and light fills the corners of my room. Then I sleep. Yet behind my spent eyelids forms of wakefulness dance and on my stony blanket sway the phantoms of dreams.
What is this which we call 'love'?
Tell me what is this hidden mystery concealed beyond the ages, lurking behind appearances, yet making its home in the heart of being?
What is this unconditioned thought that comes as the cause of all effects, as the effect of all causes?
What is this wakefulness that encompasses both death and life and molds them into a dream stranger than life and deeper than death?
- At the Gate of the Temple
Silent is the night, but in the robe of silence
dreams lie waiting.
The moon rolls overhead.
Its watchful eyes observe
the passing days.
- Night Songs
In the depths of my soul there are songs unwilling to take the garb of words, songs living as seed in my heart.
Songs spread out by silence and rolled up by noise, echoed in dreams and concealed by wakefulness.
- Songs
This earthly life begins beneath the feet of angry matter and ends in the hands of peaceful death.
- Songs of the Rain, Songs
[Like many of the people living in Syria,] He did not look beyond things and saw only what was apparent. He did not listen to the song of his soul, but busied his affections with the songs produced by his surroundings. He was inclined to amuse himself with those tawdry things of the visible world that blind one to the secrets of life and that turn the soul away from apprehending the mysteries of being and toward the contemplation of temporal pleasures. He was one of those men who are in a hurry to show their love or hatred for people and things but then regret their haste after some time has passed, making them the butt of mockery and scorn, not forgiveness.
Have we not heard and seen that often superficial beauty has been the cause of hidden and dreadful afflictions, of deep and painful sorrows? Is not the moon, whose rays shine on limpid waters for the poets, that same moon that causes the ebb and flow of the tides troubling the seas?
My body has been shackled before I had known the essence of those chains or the consequences of that law. When I awoke and felt these things, I knew that a woman's happiness is not to be found in a man's wealth or in obedience to him, nor even in his generosity and kindness. It is to be found in the love that binds her spirit to his, a love that pours her emotions into his heart, that makes them one limb of the body of life, one word upon the lips of God.
Love is a power that creates our hearts, Our hearts cannot create love.
Love descends into our spirits by a decree of God, not by human intention.
Some people come forth from eternity and then return to it without having tasted of true life.
With their small eyes they look upon the exterior of acts but do not see their mysteries. In ignorance they judge and in blindness they condemn.
They judge souls by the standards of bodies and weigh the spirit in material scales.
'Look at these beautiful houses and tall and stately palaces. There live the rich and powerful among men. Their walls are decorated with silken tapestries yet enclose coarse treachery concealed by hypocrisy. Beneath their gilded roofs, falsehood stands close by affectation. Look! and think on those edifices with care. To you they symbolize wealth, power, and happiness, but they are no more than caves in which lurk degradation, misery and wretchedness. Within them the flash of silver and gold hides the egotism and bestiality of me. They are palaces whose walls rise in haughtiness and pride toward the sky, but if they could perceive the stench of the loathsome things and deceit flowing from them, they would crumble and fall to the ground in ruin.'
Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom.
Heaven did not wish man to be unhappy, for it has placed in the depths of his being a longing for happiness - for through man's happiness God is glorified.
- Rose Al-Hani
Come near, my life's companion. Come near to me, and do not let the icy breaths separate our two bodies. Sit beside me before the hearth, for fire is the sweetest fruit of winter. Tell me stories of bygone times, for my ears weary of the wind's sighs and the keening of the elements. Bolt the doors and windows, for the sight of angry weather saddens my soul and the sight of the town, sitting like a bereaved mother beneath layers of ice, oppresses my heart... Fill the lamp with oil, O my life's companion, for it burs low. Place it near me so I can see what the nights have written on your face. Bring a jug of wine for us to drink, and we will remember the days when it was pressed.
Come, come near to me, beloved of my soul, for the fire has burned down and the ashes cover it. Embrace me, for the lamp has gone out and darkness presses in. Our eyes have grown heavy with the wine of years. Look on me with eyes shadowed with sleep. Embrace me before slumber embraces me. Kiss me, for the ice has conquered all but your kiss. And oh, my beloved, how deep is the sea of sleep, how far distant is the morning... in this world!
- Winter, The Life of Love
The wretched trudge to the factories, features showing the shadow of despair and fear, the shadow that would darken the face of one sent against his will to a fearful and deadly battle. The streets are choked with people in greedy haste.
The town has become a battlefield where strong fight weak and the tyrannous rich monopolize the fruits of the toil of the poor and destitute.
How harsh is life here, my beloved, for it is like the heart of a criminal, filled with vice and horrors!
- A Dialogue of Spirits
Man can find no comfort but in words and complaint. Sorrow, my friend, is eased by complaint. The lover finds solace in words of longing. The oppressed finds pleasure in seeking mercy.
- What is hidden in the Hearts
CONTENTS
Introduction to the Penguin edition by Robin Waterfield
Introduction by John Walbridge
Note on Texts
At the Gate of the Temple
Night Songs
Songs
Rose Al-Hani
The Enchanting Spirit
The life of Love
In a Year Unrecorded in History
The Beloved
The Queen of Imagination
Words of Love
Communion
Among the Ruins
Before Suicide
A Smile and a Tear
A Dialogue of Spirits
The Bridal Bed
In the Name of God, My Heart
What is Hidden in Hearts
Daughters of the Sea
O Night
To the spirit that embraced my spirit, to the heart that poured its secrets into my heart, to the hand that kindled the fire of my emotions, I dedicate this book. - Gibran
This was Gibran's dedication of his collection Rebellious Spirits, in which the stories 'Rose al-Hani' and 'The Bridal Bed' appeared. It is addressed to his friend and patron Mary Haskell.
I purified my lips with sacred fire that I might speak of love, but when I opened my mouth to speak, I found myself mute.
I sang the melodies of a love I did not yet know, but when I came to know it, the words became a muffled whisper in my mouth, the songs in my breast a profound silence.
Will you not tell me what is this fire kindled in my breast? It consumes my faculties and melts my emotions and desires.
What are these invisible hands, soft yet coarse, that grip my spirit in my hours of solitude and loneliness? Into my heart they pour wine mixed with the bitterness of pleasure and the sweetness of pain.
What are these wings rustling about my couch in the silence of the night as I watch wakeful for what I know not, listening to what I do not hear, staring at what I do not see, pondering what I do not comprehend, aware of what I do not apprehend, sighing because in sighs are the groanings more beloved to me than the echoes of laughter and joy, submitting to an unseen power that slays me, then gives me life, then slays me again and again until dawn breaks and light fills the corners of my room. Then I sleep. Yet behind my spent eyelids forms of wakefulness dance and on my stony blanket sway the phantoms of dreams.
What is this which we call 'love'?
Tell me what is this hidden mystery concealed beyond the ages, lurking behind appearances, yet making its home in the heart of being?
What is this unconditioned thought that comes as the cause of all effects, as the effect of all causes?
What is this wakefulness that encompasses both death and life and molds them into a dream stranger than life and deeper than death?
- At the Gate of the Temple
Silent is the night, but in the robe of silence
dreams lie waiting.
The moon rolls overhead.
Its watchful eyes observe
the passing days.
- Night Songs
In the depths of my soul there are songs unwilling to take the garb of words, songs living as seed in my heart.
Songs spread out by silence and rolled up by noise, echoed in dreams and concealed by wakefulness.
- Songs
This earthly life begins beneath the feet of angry matter and ends in the hands of peaceful death.
- Songs of the Rain, Songs
[Like many of the people living in Syria,] He did not look beyond things and saw only what was apparent. He did not listen to the song of his soul, but busied his affections with the songs produced by his surroundings. He was inclined to amuse himself with those tawdry things of the visible world that blind one to the secrets of life and that turn the soul away from apprehending the mysteries of being and toward the contemplation of temporal pleasures. He was one of those men who are in a hurry to show their love or hatred for people and things but then regret their haste after some time has passed, making them the butt of mockery and scorn, not forgiveness.
Have we not heard and seen that often superficial beauty has been the cause of hidden and dreadful afflictions, of deep and painful sorrows? Is not the moon, whose rays shine on limpid waters for the poets, that same moon that causes the ebb and flow of the tides troubling the seas?
My body has been shackled before I had known the essence of those chains or the consequences of that law. When I awoke and felt these things, I knew that a woman's happiness is not to be found in a man's wealth or in obedience to him, nor even in his generosity and kindness. It is to be found in the love that binds her spirit to his, a love that pours her emotions into his heart, that makes them one limb of the body of life, one word upon the lips of God.
Love is a power that creates our hearts, Our hearts cannot create love.
Love descends into our spirits by a decree of God, not by human intention.
Some people come forth from eternity and then return to it without having tasted of true life.
With their small eyes they look upon the exterior of acts but do not see their mysteries. In ignorance they judge and in blindness they condemn.
They judge souls by the standards of bodies and weigh the spirit in material scales.
'Look at these beautiful houses and tall and stately palaces. There live the rich and powerful among men. Their walls are decorated with silken tapestries yet enclose coarse treachery concealed by hypocrisy. Beneath their gilded roofs, falsehood stands close by affectation. Look! and think on those edifices with care. To you they symbolize wealth, power, and happiness, but they are no more than caves in which lurk degradation, misery and wretchedness. Within them the flash of silver and gold hides the egotism and bestiality of me. They are palaces whose walls rise in haughtiness and pride toward the sky, but if they could perceive the stench of the loathsome things and deceit flowing from them, they would crumble and fall to the ground in ruin.'
Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom.
Heaven did not wish man to be unhappy, for it has placed in the depths of his being a longing for happiness - for through man's happiness God is glorified.
- Rose Al-Hani
Come near, my life's companion. Come near to me, and do not let the icy breaths separate our two bodies. Sit beside me before the hearth, for fire is the sweetest fruit of winter. Tell me stories of bygone times, for my ears weary of the wind's sighs and the keening of the elements. Bolt the doors and windows, for the sight of angry weather saddens my soul and the sight of the town, sitting like a bereaved mother beneath layers of ice, oppresses my heart... Fill the lamp with oil, O my life's companion, for it burs low. Place it near me so I can see what the nights have written on your face. Bring a jug of wine for us to drink, and we will remember the days when it was pressed.
Come, come near to me, beloved of my soul, for the fire has burned down and the ashes cover it. Embrace me, for the lamp has gone out and darkness presses in. Our eyes have grown heavy with the wine of years. Look on me with eyes shadowed with sleep. Embrace me before slumber embraces me. Kiss me, for the ice has conquered all but your kiss. And oh, my beloved, how deep is the sea of sleep, how far distant is the morning... in this world!
- Winter, The Life of Love
The wretched trudge to the factories, features showing the shadow of despair and fear, the shadow that would darken the face of one sent against his will to a fearful and deadly battle. The streets are choked with people in greedy haste.
The town has become a battlefield where strong fight weak and the tyrannous rich monopolize the fruits of the toil of the poor and destitute.
How harsh is life here, my beloved, for it is like the heart of a criminal, filled with vice and horrors!
- A Dialogue of Spirits
Man can find no comfort but in words and complaint. Sorrow, my friend, is eased by complaint. The lover finds solace in words of longing. The oppressed finds pleasure in seeking mercy.
- What is hidden in the Hearts
December 22, 2018
شادمانم
از این که هستم و نیستم
شادمانم
از این که هست و نیست
و شادمانم
از این که تو در کنارم هستی و نیستی
کم کم معنای عاشقی را یاد می گیرم...
از این که هستم و نیستم
شادمانم
از این که هست و نیست
و شادمانم
از این که تو در کنارم هستی و نیستی
کم کم معنای عاشقی را یاد می گیرم...
September 27, 2015
Gibran writes of love the way he writes of everything - in the best way possibe, guided by beauty. This book is a collection of stories or poems about love both as a romantic attachment and a divine reality and both in the same moment. It is on par with The Prophet in its beauty and depth of thought, if not in its magnitude.
July 2, 2008
Read the prophet first. This is a short collection of love stories and poems not all being anything especially profound.
Read
November 25, 2008life's
April 12, 2012
After 7 years, another reading was due for inspiration and some perspective.
September 28, 2012
This is probably the kind of book where you have to be in love when you read it. I'm not in love for once, so as pretty as the writing was, things got kind of repetitive after a while.
January 24, 2024
Exquisite poetry.
August 9, 2013
ما در همه زندگی می کنیم
و همه در ما زنده اند
در قلب هر انسانی شاعری است
و در قلب هر انسانی،گنهکاری
قلب تو شاعری است
و قلب من گنهکاری که شعر را نمی فهمد
و همه در ما زنده اند
در قلب هر انسانی شاعری است
و در قلب هر انسانی،گنهکاری
قلب تو شاعری است
و قلب من گنهکاری که شعر را نمی فهمد
November 25, 2023
"My lover loves me and seeks me in his own works, but he will find me only in the works of God."
"The great truths that are above nature do not pass from one human being to another by means of ordinary human speech. Rather, they choose silence as the path between souls."
"He who reveals secrets is like the foolish man. Silence and concealment is better for him who loves."
"The great truths that are above nature do not pass from one human being to another by means of ordinary human speech. Rather, they choose silence as the path between souls."
"He who reveals secrets is like the foolish man. Silence and concealment is better for him who loves."
July 5, 2022
A reiteration on love being the uttermost virtue in the world. The multiple stories in the book bring forth the concept that true love is worth dying for - it is only honorable to face death that to be in a loveless marriage.
December 24, 2019
Beautiful!
November 15, 2022
This is one of my favorite books.. I have it on an l have it on vinyl lp also by Arthur pysock
February 21, 2023
For the love of "LOVE"
A beautiful collection of poems and short stories that will leave you thinking and take you to a different world!
Made me think: "Can someone love "LOVE" so much?
A beautiful collection of poems and short stories that will leave you thinking and take you to a different world!
Made me think: "Can someone love "LOVE" so much?
December 27, 2024
Awfully romantic, beautifully written prose in light of the linguistic alterations.
June 29, 2025
Very beautiful I liked the imagery in the book
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews