BOOK REVIEW: THE BOOK OF MIRDAD
mikhaïl naimy, filled with love Culture has expanded human nature, but what is lacking is a proportional spiritual growth, linked with the idea of the final goal of humanity. Without an ultimate goal, man is doomed to destroy himself. Mikhail Naimy makes this creed resound in his books. The Book of Mirdad, too, breathes the longing for the victory, a longing that is filled with love.
M
ikhail Naimy was born in Lebanon in 1889. He received a Russian education in Nazareth, studying literature in the Ukraine from 1906, and in Washington between 1911 and 1916. In Washington, he founded, together with his friend Kahlil Gibran – the author of, amongst other things, The Prophet – the Pen Society, an association of Arabic authors in America. Naimy wrote many books and essays about Arabic literature, which still belong to the standard works. When his friend Kahlil died in 1931, Mikhail returned to Lebanon. His creed was: culture has expanded human nature, but what is lacking is a proportional spiritual growth, linked with the idea of the final goal of humanity. Without an ultimate goal, man is doomed to destroy himself. We 38 pentagram 5/2010
find this spiritual message in all his works, and certainly in The Book of Mirdad that was published in Beirut in 1948, in Mumbai (at the time called Bombay, India) in 1954. Subsequently it was published in many other languages both inside and outside Europe. Since 1960, a Dutch translation has been available. The essence of his ideas is: the whole cosmos and life are one and indivisible, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This is why analysis, as applied by science, is never able to penetrate the whole truth, because it breaks it down into pieces and does not lead to a synthesis. Only a person’s inner being is able to understand the inner being in all other things and people as well as in the whole universe. Therefore, what matters is to gain cosmic
