No. 65 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Most Knowing One
When we feel unseen or misunderstood in our suffering, this name invites us to rest in a Knowledge that already comprehends us completely.
I call on Thee O All-Compelling, O Ever-Abiding, O Most Knowing 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 · Knowing
1. Skilful; well informed; intelligent; as, a knowing man; a knowing dog. The knowing and intelligent part of the world. South. 2. Artful; cunning; as, a knowing rascal. [Colloq.] Knowledge; hence, experience. " In my knowing." Shak. This sore night Hath trifled former knowings. Shak.
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 Most Knowing One” 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 Most Knowing One' points to a quality of divine awareness that is nothing like the knowledge we build up through study, experience, or effort. Human knowing is always partial, we piece together clues, revise our understanding, and still miss things. The knowledge attributed to God here is understood as whole and immediate, the way a source of light doesn't gradually illuminate a room but simply is the condition in which everything becomes visible at once. It is a knowledge that is also presence.
There is something deeply reassuring about this name, and also something that asks something of us. If God is the Most Knowing One, then nothing about our condition, the tangled history behind an illness, the grief folded inside a physical symptom, the hope we haven't dared to name, is hidden or overlooked. Every dimension of who we are is already known, not merely catalogued but held in a knowing that, by its nature, is also caring. This is quite different from the unnerving feeling of being watched. It is more like being known by someone who loves us and is not surprised by anything they find.
In the context of the Bahá'í teachings, knowledge of God is considered the highest form of understanding available to a human being, not because other knowledge is unimportant, but because it is the root from which genuine insight and spiritual vitality grow. Calling on God as the Most Knowing One in prayer is, in a sense, an act of honest acknowledgment: we bring our limited, fragmented understanding before One whose knowledge has no such limits, and we ask from that infinite knowing.
Calling on The Most Knowing One for healing
When illness arrives, whether in the body, the mind, or somewhere harder to name, one of its cruelest companions is uncertainty. We don't know what is wrong, or why, or how it will unfold. Doctors search for answers; we search for meaning; we wonder if anyone truly understands what we are going through. Calling on the Most Knowing One in this prayer is a way of placing that uncertainty into hands that hold no uncertainty of their own. It is not a way of bypassing the real work of medicine and care, the Bahá'í writings are clear that physical illness calls for competent medical attention, and spiritual healing and material healing work together rather than against each other. But it is a way of grounding oneself in the conviction that the full reality of one's condition is not mysterious or lost on God.
You might return to this name slowly in your prayer, letting it do its quiet work. What does it mean, in this moment of pain or confusion, that you are completely known? Not judged, not reduced to a diagnosis or a case, known in the deepest sense of that word. Many people find that sitting with this name loosens the grip of the fear of being alone in their suffering. The outcome of healing remains in God's wisdom and hands, and we do not presume to predict it. But the assurance that we are seen, fully, accurately, compassionately, can itself be a kind of medicine for the soul.
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Living the Word
Applying The Most Knowing One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Most Knowing One 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
“5 For example, the mind and the spirit of man are aware of all his states and conditions, of all the parts and members of his body, and of all his physical sensations, as well as of his spiritual powers, perceptions, and conditions. This is an existential knowledge through which man realizes his own condition. He both senses and comprehends it, for the spirit encompasses the body and is aware of its sensations and powers. This knowledge is not the result of effort and acquisition: It is an existential matter; it is pure bounty. 6 Since those sanctified realities, the universal Manifestations of God, encompass all created things both in their essence and in their attributes, since They transcend and discover all existing realities, and since They are cognizant of all things, it follows that Their knowledge is divine and not acquired—that is, it is a heavenly grace and a divine discovery.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“20.2Answer: Know that such ways, words, and deeds are to be lauded and approved, and they redound to the glory of the human world. But these actions alone are not sufficient: They are a body of the greatest beauty, but without a spirit. No, that which leads to everlasting life, eternal honour, universal enlightenment, and true success and salvation is, first and foremost, the knowledge of God. It is clear that this knowledge takes precedence over every other knowledge and constitutes the greatest virtue of the human world. For the understanding of the reality of things confers a material advantage in the realm of being and brings about the progress of outward civilization, but the knowledge of God is the cause of spiritual progress and attraction, true vision and insight, the exaltation of humanity, the appearance of divine civilization, the rectification of morals, and the illumination of the conscience.”
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 →Questions about The Most Knowing One
- Does calling God 'The Most Knowing One' mean my prayers tell God something He doesn't already know?
- This is a question many thoughtful people bring to prayer. From a Bahá'í perspective, prayer is not understood as informing God of facts He was missing, but as a turning of the soul toward its source, an act of connection and alignment rather than communication of data. Calling on this name is less about conveying our situation and more about consciously acknowledging who it is we are turning to, and resting in the assurance that our situation is already held in that infinite awareness.
- If God already knows everything, including my illness, why should I pray for healing at all?
- This is one of the oldest and most human questions about prayer. While interpretation of the Writings is reserved for the authoritative figures of the Faith, many reflective readers notice that prayer in the Bahá'í tradition seems to be valued for what it does in us, how it orients the soul, softens pride, opens the heart, as much as for any effect it produces externally. Praying to the Most Knowing One is an act of trust and relationship, not a transaction. The outcome remains in God's hands and wisdom, which is itself part of what the prayer is asking us to accept.
- Should I rely on this prayer instead of seeing a doctor?
- No, and the Bahá'í writings themselves make this clear. Physical illness calls for the care of competent medical professionals, and spiritual practice is meant to complement that care, not replace it. The Long Healing Prayer can be a source of comfort, strength, and spiritual support alongside whatever medical treatment is appropriate, but it is not a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment. Please do consult a qualified physician for any medical concern.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer