The Prophet

The Prophet takes place over the course of a single afternoon in the fictional city of Orphalese. Almustafa, the titular prophet, has spent the last 12 years living in and around the city, agonized in his solitary spiritual quest. When he spots a ship from his home country approaching through the mist, he rejoices that his countrymen have come to retrieve him, although he is sad to leave behind Orphalese, even if he has suffered greatly here. The townspeople congregate and beseech Almustafa to stay, saddening him but failing to change his mind. Then, the seeress Almitra—the first person to believe in Almustafa when he arrived 12 years earlier—tells him that his time to go has come, but she asks that he first impart all he has learned about life to the townspeople.

This begins a dialogue between the townspeople and Almustafa that occupies the majority of the work. In sequence, Almustafa responds to the citizens’ queries about love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death. Almustafa’s responses on each topic employ poetic, metaphorical language that convey a deep spiritual profundity. Common to the widely varying subjects is his insistence on a more natural and harmonious way of living that the citizens should embrace—a way of life they would have embraced already if it were not for their fear of defying arbitrary social conventions. He promotes peace, simplicity and silence over verbal and spiritual noise. His vision of reality is one of cosmic harmony and unity, in which death is merely a rejoining of this divine order.

Finally, the afternoon has become evening, and Almustafa must depart. As he goes, he tells the townspeople that his apparent aloofness during his time there was really on their behalf; he held himself apart from them so that he could have the space to observe them better and thus understand their pain. He tells them that he will return one day, perhaps reincarnated, if his teachings have failed to take hold amongst them. He reiterates that he will one day return, and then he boards his countrymen’s ship and departs into the mist. The townspeople greatly lament his departure, but Almitra stands silently apart and meditates on Almustafa’s parting words about his eventual return.