Religion Theme Analysis

Religion is the second to last of the 26 topics the citizens present to Almustafa, followed only by death. And yet, when asked about it, the prophet replies with the rhetorical question, “Have I spoken this day of aught else?” He clarifies this suggestion (a surprising one, given that throughout the day he has spoken about clothes, houses, commerce, and much else that doesn’t seem directly related to religion) by defining religion as a force that encompasses all possibilities in human life: “Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, and that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?” This entirely comprehensive conception of religion is arguably the heart of the prophet’s teaching: he wants to make the citizens understand that no real boundary exists between the everyday and the divine, and that a religious sensibility should imbue their experience of every moment.

Yet the omnipresent “religion” he proposes differs from the kind of religion found in churches, which often focus heavily on specific theological disputes and cling to isolated ideas about morality. Almustafa’s religious worldview, on the other hand, is a bit more all-encompassing and less concerned with denominational specifics. Indeed, Almustafa presents a celebratory relationship with the self-evident holiness of life and nature. He urges his listeners to “look into space” and “see [God] walking in the cloud” or, alternatively, to look around and see God “smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.” Gibran’s lyrical language draws stylistically on the great texts of religious traditions worldwide, but he repurposes them to a new and non-denominational vision of a universal nature religion, to which everyone already but unknowingly belongs.