" ...that every man may thereby win his way to the summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything whatsoever but that he shall see God therein."

"In the Name of God, the Clement, the Merciful.

Praise be to God Who hath made being to come forth from nothingness; graven upon the tablet of man the secrets of preexistence; taught him from the mysteries of divine utterance that which he knew not; made him a Luminous Book unto those who believed and surrendered themselves; caused him to witness the creation of all things (Kullu Shay’)* in this black and ruinous age, and to speak forth from the apex of eternity with a wondrous voice in the Excellent Temple 1 : to the end that every man may testify, in himself, by himself, in the station of the Manifestation of his Lord, that verily there is no God save Him, and that every man may thereby win his way to the 2 summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything whatsoever but that he shall see God therein."

Bahá'u'lláh, The Seven Valleys And the Four Valleys, The Seven Valleys, p. 1-2

1.The Manifestation.
2.Muḥammad, Aḥmad and Maḥmúd are names and titles of the Prophet, derived from the verb “to praise,” “to exalt.”


*The Báb has, in His writings revealed in Arabic, divided the years following the date of His Revelation, into cycles of nineteen years each. Each cycle of nineteen years is called Váhid. Nineteen cycles constitute a period called Kull-i-Shay. The numerical value of the word "Váhid"is nineteen. It signifies unity, and is symbolic of the unity of God. The numerical value of the "Kull-i-Shay" is 361, and literally means "all things."