# What is Baha'u'llah's Message to the Sufis?

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-20 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Roberta Law, What is Baha'u'llah's Message to the Sufis?, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> What is Baha'u'llah's Message to the Sufis?
> 
> Roberta Law
> 
> 1998-02
> 
> In a mystical treatise called "The Seven Valleys", written ca. 1856,
> Bahá'u'lláh, Founder of the Bahá'í Faith, wrote answers to certain questions
> put to Him by Shaykh Muhiyi'd-Din, a judge in the town of Khaniqayn,
> northeast of Baghdad, near Persia. The judge was a Sufi and his questions
> dealt with certain themes of that movement. This reply was written in the
> style of a well-known Persian Sufi teacher and poet, Faridu'd-Din-i-'Attar,
> with copious quotations from another well-known teacher and poet, Jalaluddin
> Rumi. He argues that the ultimate knowledge of God is not available to
> the seeker, except through recognition of the Messenger and obedience to
> revealed Laws.
> 
> What is a Sufi and what does he believe?
> 
> The movement which became known as "Sufism" grew up originally within Islam.
> The people attracted to it were attracted to the idea of reaching the Divine
> Essence personally. The sincere amongst Sufis truly wanted to experience
> the Presence of God themselves. Teachers introduced repetitive practices
> which were calculated to assist people to have this personal experience.
> Some examples of these practices, which are still in use today, are dancing
> in circles or repeating certain prayers over and over again while bowing up
> and down. From time to time drugs were used, but this was considered by the
> sincere as decadent practice. Songs, prayers, dancing and other repetitive
> practices were more often used to induce ecstasy, presumed to be a direct
> experience of the Presence of God. Stories, especially about the mythical
> Sufi teacher, Mulla Nasrudin, were also used to illustrate spiritual truths.
> 
> In the earliest days of this movement two teachers, who were also poets,
> arose. They were Fariduddin Attar (called "The Chemist") and Jalaluddin
> Rumi (called "Our Master"). Their writings became very well-known to all
> literate Persians, and modern commentators have suggested that Rumi is,
> "surely the greatest mystical poet in the history of mankind." (Shah 132).
> It has been said that reading his poetry is sufficient to induce an ecstasic
> state. (Shah 132)
> 
> Sufism is not a religion, but rather that mystical experience which is at
> the heart of every religion. Religion, with its rituals, organization and
> laws, was the outer shell of an experience with the divine. Among
> themselves Sufis would say, " Sufi is a Moslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. A
> Sufi is a carpenter, a housewife, a banker." Sufism had (has) to do with
> the full development of the person by way of recognizing his True Self, i.e.
> God,within himself. Anyone, therefore, who is in touch with the reality of
> his religion, the reality of this world, is, they would say, a Sufi.
> 
> However Sufism, like religions, experienced time when its forms were used
> and the contents forgotten. This led, for example, to "dervishes" (Sufi
> wanderers) begging and expecting to be cared for because they were the
> holders of special, spiritual knowledge. Another problem was a feeling of
> superiority to recognized laws and codes of behavior which came about
> because they felt they had discovered the "real" truth of life. One of the
> beliefs that had crept in was that it was possible to experience God (the
> Divine Essense) yourself without a Mediator. This was a corruption of Sufi
> wisdom because the learning was always given from person to person. A
> modern Sufi said that reading a book about Sufism was like eating canned
> pineapple. You have to get the wisdom from a person. However, this was
> still not as far as Bahá'u'lláh's claim that you needed a Divine Mediator, a
> Person of another station than human, a "Manifestation".
> 
> How did Bahá'u'lláh speak to them?
> 
> In the Seven Valleys Bahá'u'lláh talks to the Sufis of his day in their own
> symbols and forms. For example, he uses the oldest form of the Sufi
> literature, the Seven Valleys (or Cities, as it is also known), of the poet
> Attar, to present His vision to the Sufis. His also quotes copiously from
> Rumi. Thus he built credibility for His argument.
> 
> And His argument? What was it exactly?
> 
> In the Seven Valleys Bahá'u'lláh sifts the wheat of Sufi teaching from the
> chaff that had crept in over the years. His point is that mankind can have
> an experience of the Divine (Valley of Love), can grow in understanding
> (Valley of Knowledge), can experience the unity of all things (Valley of
> Unity), be content (Valley of Contentment), and experience amazement (Valley
> of Wonderment), but there is a veil between the Creator and the created
> which can only be penetrated by a Being of another quality than man. He is
> the Messenger and His counsels must be followed. Bahá'u'lláh says: "In
> all these journeys the traveler must stray not the breadth of a hair from
> the 'Law', for this is indeed the secret of the 'Path' and the fruit of the
> Tree of 'truth', and in all these stages he must cling to the robe of
> obedience to the commandments, and hold fast to the cord of shunning all
> forbidden things, that he may be nourished from the cup of the Law and
> informed of the mysteries of truth."
> 
> In conclusion.
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh's message to the Sufis (and mankind) was that although a seeker
> of the Divine Essence can develop his consciousness considerably in this
> world, true contact with the Essence is impossible. Full development can
> only come through recognition of the Messenger and obedience to His Laws.
> 
> -----------------
> 
> Shah, I., The Sufis, Doubleday 1964
> 
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> Views18968 views since posted 2003-10-19; last edit 2012;
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> previous at archive.org.../law_message_sufis;
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> — *What is Baha'u'llah's Message to the Sufis? (Used by permission of the curator)*