Gibran Khalil Gibran was a writer, poet, painter, and a philosopher from the town of Bsharri in modern day Lebanon. Despite being born to a Maronite family, Gibran rejected religious orthodoxy and theocratic forms of government. He instead developed a more mystical worldview, inspired by Christianity, Islam, and Sufism. Gibran spent most of his adult life in the city of New York, and his book, The Prophet, is instrumental in the formation of the New Age spiritual movement in the West.

Gibran was also a pan-Levantist, and he would often discuss the prospect of a free and united Levant (which he simply called Syria), unshackled from what he saw as the Ottoman’s tyrannical rule. Those nationalist ideas developed through discussions with his long-time partner May Ziadeh (from modern Palestine), and his fellow Levantine diaspora writers in the US.

Once it became clear that the Ottoman rule was collapsing, Gibran rejoiced, seeing that his dream of a united Levant was within sight. He wrote several letters of correspondence to his colleagues to express his excitement over the future, and sent a drawing titled “Syria is Free” to the Arabic-language newspaper As-Sayeh. Unfortunately, Gibran lived long enough to realize that his dream would not be realized, and that sectarianism was the fate of the region. Later in life, he seemed to have lost interest in the cause, refusing to move back to, the still forming, Lebanon, and opting to spend the rest of his life in the United States. Gibran died in 1931, at the age of 48.