No. 72 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Kind to all
In a single name, the prayer reminds us that God's kindness is not rationed, it flows toward every creature, in every condition, without favoritism or limit.
I call on Thee O Thou Kind to all, O Thou Compassionate with all, O Most Benevolent One! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer
Plain meaning · Kind
1. Characteristic of the species; belonging to one's nature; natural; native. [Obs.] Chaucer. It becometh sweeter than it should be, and loseth the kind taste. Holland. 2. Having feelings befitting our common nature; congenial; sympathetic; as, a kind man; a kind heart. Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was his fault. Goldsmith. 3. Showing tenderness or goodness; disposed to do good and confer happiness; averse to hurting or paining; benevolent; benignant; gracious. He is kind unto the unthankful and to evil. Luke vi 35. …
Definition from Webster's Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain). When these Writings were translated into English, the translator relied on Webster's New International Dictionary, 1934 edition, of the same Webster's tradition. source
What “The Kind to all” means
The meaning above is the plain dictionary definition of the word. What follows reflects on it as a name of God, offered for your own contemplation, and not as an authoritative interpretation of the Bahá'í Writings, which rests with ‘Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi alone.
The name 'The Kind to All' carries a quiet but radical claim: that the kindness at the heart of existence is genuinely universal. It does not stream only toward the virtuous, the healthy, the fortunate, or the faithful of a particular tradition. It bends toward all, the suffering and the well, the doubting and the certain, the overlooked and the celebrated. To sit with this name is to feel the ground shift slightly beneath ordinary assumptions about who deserves care.
In Arabic and Persian devotional tradition, divine kindness is not merely a warm feeling but an active, sustaining force, the kind of tenderness a parent shows a newborn who has done nothing to earn it. When Bahá'u'lláh places this name alongside others in the prayer, the grouping is not accidental. Kindness arrives here in the company of compassion, benevolence, and sufficiency, as though the prayer is weaving a single cloth from threads that all point to the same inexhaustible generosity at the source of things.
What makes this name particularly striking is its scope. 'All' is not a figure of speech. It resists every temptation to carve humanity into the deserving and the undeserving. For someone who has been made to feel small, excluded, or forgotten, whether by illness, grief, failure, or the world's indifference, this name offers something steadying: the assurance that the divine regard was never withdrawn, even when everything else seemed to suggest otherwise.
Calling on The Kind to all for healing
When we are unwell, in body, in mind, or in that harder-to-name place where spirit and emotion meet, one of the subtler wounds can be a sense of abandonment. We wonder, sometimes without admitting it aloud, whether we have been forgotten, whether our particular suffering falls outside the circle of what matters. Calling on God as 'The Kind to All' speaks directly into that fear. It is an act of remembering, before any answer arrives, that this kindness is already oriented toward us, not because we have earned it, but simply because 'all' means all, and we are part of all.
Holding this name in prayer does not bypass the wisdom of seeking skilled medical care, there is no contradiction between turning to competent physicians and turning to God. Both can be expressions of trusting the gifts placed within creation. But the name 'The Kind to All' can steady the heart during the waiting that healing so often requires: the waiting for a diagnosis, for a treatment to work, for grief to soften, for a fractured relationship to find its way back. We hold the outcome in trust, not in certainty, knowing that whatever unfolds is held inside a kindness larger than our ability to measure it.
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Living the Word
Applying The Kind to all in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Kind to all being asked of you right now, and how will you practice it? Keep a short note each time you return, and watch your own path with this name take shape over time. It stays on this device.
In the Bahá'í Writings
“15.3O handmaid of God! The prayers which were revealed to ask for healing apply both to physical and spiritual healing. Recite them, then, to heal both the soul and the body. If healing is right for the patient, it will certainly be granted; but for some ailing persons, healing would only be the cause of other ills, and therefore wisdom doth not permit an affirmative answer to the prayer. 15.4O handmaid of God! The power of the Holy Spirit healeth both physical and spiritual ailments. Acquiring Divine Virtues”
Read in full at bahai.org →“God Is the Great Compassionate Physician Who Alone Gives True Healing October 19th All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy. If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us! There have been many men who have died at last of the very disease of which they have made a special study. Aristotle, for instance, who made a special study of the digestion, died of a gastric malady. Avicenna was a specialist of the heart, but he died of heart disease. God is the great compassionate Physician who alone has the power to give true healing. All creatures are dependent upon God, however great may seem their knowledge, power and independence.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“21.1That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error. 22.1Beware, O believers in the Unity of God, lest ye be tempted to make any distinction between any of the Manifestations of His Cause, or to discriminate against the signs that have accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation. This indeed is the true meaning of Divine Unity, if ye be of them that apprehend and believe this truth. Be ye assured, moreover, that the works and acts of each and every one of these Manifestations of God, nay whatever pertaineth unto them, and whatsoever they may manifest in the future, are all ordained by God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Kind to all
- Why does the prayer call God 'Kind to All' rather than simply 'Kind'?
- The addition of 'all' is theologically significant, it rules out any reading that limits divine kindness to a select group. In a prayer for healing, where a person may already feel isolated or unworthy, the universal scope is a deliberate comfort. It signals that no condition of body or spirit places a person outside the reach of this quality in God.
- Does calling on this name mean God will cure my illness?
- Reflecting on the Bahá'í writings, healing prayers are understood to address both physical and spiritual dimensions, and outcomes are held in God's wisdom rather than guaranteed by any formula. Calling on this name is an act of trust and surrender, not a transaction. Seeking competent medical care remains important, and the two, prayer and medicine, are not in conflict.
- How is 'kindness' different from 'compassion' in this part of the prayer?
- The prayer invokes both in the same breath, and while the two overlap deeply, they have slightly different textures. Compassion often implies a response to suffering already present, a feeling-with. Kindness can be more proactive, a generosity extended even before need is declared. Together they suggest a God whose care is both responsive to our pain and already moving toward us before we find words for it.
- Can non-Bahá'ís use this prayer or reflect on these names?
- Bahá'u'lláh's writings are addressed to all of humanity, and anyone sincerely drawn to this prayer is welcome to read and reflect on it. The name 'The Kind to All' is itself an argument against exclusion, it would be somewhat contradictory for a page meditating on universal divine kindness to turn anyone away at the door.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer