| ←Contents | Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys by Preface |
1. The Seven Valleys of Bahá'u'lláh may be regarded as the summit of the achievement in the realm of mystical composition. This profound essay was written in response to question of Shaykh Muḥyi'd-Dín, the judge of Khániqín, a town situated near the Persian border northeast of Baghdád. The judge was evidently a student of Ṣúfí philosophy, a variety of mysticism that developed as a movement within Islám. The goal of the Ṣúfí was to attain the Presence of God through meditation and prayer, contemplation and ecstacy. A special terminology was developed to explain the stages of spiritual progress. Some Ṣúfís embraced the doctrine that they could approach God directly without assistance from Muḥammad or other Prophets. This view logically led to the tenet that the Ṣúfís were exempt from the laws of religion and that for them, even if not for the multitude, conscience was a safe guide. The greatest of the Persian mystics, Jalállu'd-Din Rúmí and al-Ghazzálí, contested this theory, affirming that only through obedience to the laws of God as revealed by His Messengers could one attain unto the Divine Presence.
2. Shaykh Muḥyi'd-Dín was doubtless conversant with the writings of the twelfth century Persian Ṣúfí, Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár. 'Aṭṭár's most esteemed work on was the Mantiqu'ṭ-Ṭayr or Language of the Birds. In it the journey of the soul is traced through Seven Valleys: Search, Love, Knowledge, Detachment, Unification, Bewilderment, and Annihilation. Bahá'u'lláh employed a similar, although not identical, pattern in His Persian Seven Valleys which delineates the seven stages of progress of the soul toward the object of its being. Bahá'u'lláh wrote this work after His return to Baghdád from mountains near Sulaymániyyih. The subject is essentially timeless and placeless, the inner verities of religion. The spiritual realities are the same in all the established religions, and they constitute the foundation of faith. This is the purport of the declaration of Baha'u'llah concerning His faith: "This is the changeless Faith to God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future."
3. The Four Valleys, an epistle written in Baghdád after the composition of the Seven Valleys, was addressed to the learned Shaykh 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán of Karkúk, a city of 'Iráqi Kurdistán. It sets forth four ways in which the Unseen is seen, the four stages of the human heart, and the four kinds of mystic wayfarers in quest of the Intended One, the Praiseworthy One, the Attracting One, the Beloved. The four divine states are given in this verse from the Qur'án (57:3): "He is the first and the last; the Seen and the Hidden; and He knoweth all things."
-Robert L. Gulick, Jr.
- February 1, 1975
