No. 89 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Most Precious One
In a single phrase, Bahá'u'lláh turns our eyes toward a God whose value surpasses everything we have ever treasured.
I call on Thee O Quencher of thirsts, O Transcendent Lord, O Most Precious 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 · Precious
1. Of great price; costly; as, a precious stone. "The precious bane." Milton. 2. Of great value or worth; very valuable; highly esteemed; dear; beloved; as, precious recollections. She is more precious than rules. Prov. iii. 15. Many things which are most precious are neglected only because the value of them lieth hid. Hooker. Note: Also used ironically; as, a precious rascal. 3. Particular; fastidious; overnice. [Obs.] Lest that precious folk be with me wroth. Chaucer. Precious metals, the uncommon and highly valuable metals, esp. gold and silver.
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 Precious 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.
Preciousness is not an abstract quality. It is what we feel when we hold something irreplaceable, a letter from someone we love, a moment we wish would never end, a relationship we would sacrifice almost anything to protect. When Bahá'u'lláh addresses God as 'The Most Precious One,' He is pointing to a reality that stands above every object of human attachment. Whatever you have ever called precious in your life, this name suggests, was only a faint echo of the original.
The Arabic and Persian devotional tradition is rich with divine names that gesture toward God's majesty, power, or mercy. A name like this one takes a different approach: it speaks the language of intimacy and worth. It is the kind of name a heart uses, not a theologian's term for a distant absolute. To call God 'The Most Precious One' is to confess that He is not merely powerful over us or merciful toward us, but genuinely, personally dear, and that we in turn are drawn to Him as to something of inestimable value.
There is also a gentle corrective embedded in this name. Human beings orient their lives around what they consider precious, health, security, status, the people they love. This name does not condemn those attachments, but it reorders them. It invites the soul to ask: what, in the end, is my truest treasure? And it offers an answer that no loss, no illness, and no passage of time can take away.
Calling on The Most Precious One for healing
When we are sick, in body, in mind, or in spirit, we often experience a stripping away of everything we thought defined our lives. Work stops, plans fall apart, and the things we clung to for a sense of security can feel suddenly out of reach. It is precisely in that stripped-down place that a name like 'The Most Precious One' can land with unexpected force. Calling on God by this name in the midst of suffering is not a technique for obtaining relief; it is an act of reorientation, a quiet decision to turn toward the One whose value cannot be diminished by circumstances. Many people who have prayed this prayer through long seasons of illness have found that something shifts not necessarily in their condition, but in how they are able to hold it.
It is worth remembering that healing, in the Bahá'í understanding, encompasses both the body and the soul, and that wisdom, God's wisdom, not ours, governs what form that healing takes and when. Calling on The Most Precious One is an act of trust: trust that whatever the outcome, we are held by a reality more enduring than our pain. This is never a reason to delay or refuse good medical care; seeking skilled physicians is itself an expression of the care God has placed in the world. But prayer and medicine need not compete. Bringing this name to your lips, and meaning it, can be a way of carrying both your need and your hope to the only One who sees the whole picture.
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Living the Word
Applying The Most Precious One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Most Precious 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
“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 →“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 →“However, when we ponder carefully it will be observed that these unceasing trials and afflictions, these successive ordeals, though they break one’s back, crush one’s strength, and exhaust one’s endurance, are among the greatest gifts of God, the Ever-Living, the All-Powerful, for He thereby accepteth the self-sacrifice which certain souls are prompted to make in His path, enabling them to attire their heads with the glorious crown of martyrdom and to establish themselves upon the throne of everlasting sovereignty. Such hath ever been the qualification of them that enjoy near access unto God, such are the attributes of the pure in heart.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Most Precious One
- Why does Bahá'u'lláh use a name like 'The Most Precious One', it sounds so personal. Is that intentional?
- Yes, and that intimacy appears to be very much the point. The Long Healing Prayer moves through many registers of divine address, transcendence, sovereignty, sufficiency, and names like this one bring the soul into a closer, more tender relationship with God. It suggests that approaching God in times of need is not merely a petition to a distant power, but a turning toward someone genuinely and personally dear.
- Can reciting this prayer cure my illness?
- The Bahá'í writings are careful and honest on this point: healing, when it comes, is a gift held in God's wisdom, not a guaranteed result of any formula. Prayer is encouraged wholeheartedly, and its effects on the spirit are real and significant. At the same time, seeking competent medical care is equally encouraged, the two are understood as complementary, not competing.
- What does it mean to call God 'precious', isn't that a word we use for things, not for God?
- That slight surprise is part of what makes the name striking. 'Precious' is indeed the language of personal attachment, of things we would not trade for anything. Applying it to God stretches the word toward its deepest meaning: not a prized object, but the ultimate source of all worth. It is an invitation to relate to God not only with awe but with genuine affection and longing.
- Is there a specific way to meditate on this name while praying the Long Healing Prayer?
- There is no single prescribed method, and the Bahá'í writings leave personal meditative practice largely to the individual. Many people find it helpful to pause on a name like this and let it settle before moving on, perhaps asking themselves what 'precious' truly means to them, and then allowing that feeling to be redirected toward God. The prayer itself, read slowly and attentively, can become its own form of meditation.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer