No. 46 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Satisfier
When the soul aches for something it cannot name, this name of God points toward the One who meets every need at its root.
I call on Thee O Fashioner, O Satisfier, O Uprooter! 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 · Satisfier
One who satisfies.
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 Satisfier” 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.
To satisfy is to meet a need so completely that the need itself is quieted. We use the word for hunger, for thirst, for the restless searching of the mind, and in every case we mean that something real was lacking and something real has now been given. When this name is applied to God, it carries all of that weight. It suggests a divine generosity that does not merely address symptoms but goes to the source of whatever is wanting in us.
There is also a shade of meaning here worth sitting with: true satisfaction is not the same as distraction or numbing. A satisfier doesn't silence a longing by overwhelming it; a satisfier fulfills it. In this sense, calling God 'The Satisfier' is an act of trust, a way of acknowledging that the deepest hungers of the human heart, the ones that no material comfort or human relationship can fully quiet, were made with an answer already in mind.
When we consider this name alongside the other names invoked in the same breath, the Fashioner, the Uprooter, the Sufficing, the Abiding, it becomes clear that divine satisfaction is not passive. The One who fashions and uproots is also the One who fulfills. That pairing hints at something honest about healing and growth: sometimes what satisfies us must first reshape us, or remove from us something we had been clinging to.
Calling on The Satisfier for healing
When illness or distress takes hold, one of its quiet cruelties is the way it multiplies want. We want relief from pain, we want certainty about the future, we want to feel useful and present again, and those wants can pile up until the soul feels like a long list of unmet needs. Turning to God as The Satisfier in those moments is not a claim that every wish will be granted on our timeline. It is something subtler and, in the long run, more sustaining: an orientation toward the One who understands what we truly need, even when we cannot fully articulate it ourselves. This kind of prayer doesn't replace the good judgment of a skilled physician or the care of people who love us, both of those are genuine gifts to be received gratefully, but it can steady the spirit underneath all the uncertainty.
There is a particular kind of peace that can come when we stop trying to satisfy our own needs entirely through our own efforts and let ourselves be, for a moment, simply held. Meditating on this name while reciting the Long Healing Prayer can be an invitation into exactly that posture: open hands rather than clenched ones, a willingness to receive rather than only to manage. Whatever the outcome of any illness or difficulty, the soul that has genuinely rested in God's sufficiency tends to find that something real has shifted, not necessarily the outer circumstances, but the quality of presence one brings to them.
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Living the Word
Applying The Satisfier in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Satisfier 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
“This is the belief of the anthropomorphists. No, all these descriptions, all these expressions of praise and glory, refer to these holy Manifestations; that is, every description, praise, name, or attribute of God that we mention applies to Them. But no soul has ever fathomed the reality of the Essence of the Divinity so as to be able to intimate, describe, praise, or glorify it. Thus all that the human reality knows, discovers, and understands of the names, attributes, and perfections of God refers to these holy Manifestations and leads nowhere else: “The way is cut off, and all seeking rejected.” 6 Yet we ascribe certain names and attributes to the reality of the Divinity and praise Him for His sight, His hearing, His power, His life and knowledge. We affirm these names and attributes not to affirm the perfections of God, but to deny that He has any imperfections.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“6.2O thou seeker after the Kingdom! Every divine Manifestation is the very life of the world, and the skilled physician of each ailing soul. The world of man is sick, and that competent Physician knoweth the cure, arising as He doth with teachings, counsels and admonishments that are the remedy for every pain, the healing balm to every wound. It is certain that the wise physician can diagnose his patient’s needs at any season, and apply the cure. Wherefore, relate thou the Teachings of the Abhá Beauty to the urgent needs of this present day, and thou wilt see that they provide an instant remedy for the ailing body of the world. Indeed, they are the elixir that bringeth eternal health.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“O thou seeker after the Kingdom! Every divine Manifestation is the very life of the world, and the skilled physician of each ailing soul. The world of man is sick, and that competent Physician knoweth the cure, arising as He doth with teachings, counsels and admonishments that are the remedy for every pain, the healing balm to every wound. It is certain that the wise physician can diagnose his patient’s needs at any season, and apply the cure. Wherefore, relate thou the Teachings of the Abhá Beauty to the urgent needs of this present day, and thou wilt see that they provide an instant remedy for the ailing body of the world. Indeed, they are the elixir that bringeth eternal health.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Satisfier
- Does calling God 'The Satisfier' in this prayer mean my illness will be healed?
- Reciting the Long Healing Prayer is an act of turning toward God in trust, but the Bahá'í teachings do not frame prayer as a formula that guarantees a specific physical outcome. Healing, in its fullest sense, encompasses body, mind, and spirit, and its course rests in God's wisdom rather than our own timetable. Anyone facing a medical condition is encouraged to work with qualified healthcare professionals alongside whatever spiritual practices sustain them.
- What is the difference between 'The Satisfier' and 'The Sufficing', they appear in the same line?
- Both names point toward divine completeness, but they carry slightly different tones. 'The Sufficing' suggests that God is enough, that nothing outside of God is ultimately required to make existence whole. 'The Satisfier' is more relational and active: it names the movement of that sufficiency toward a need, the act of fulfilling rather than merely being sufficient. Together in the prayer they reinforce each other, like two facets of the same generous reality.
- How do names of God in Bahá'í prayer relate to the unknowable divine Essence?
- In Bahá'í understanding, the divine Essence itself lies forever beyond human comprehension, no concept or name can capture what God ultimately is. The names and attributes we use in prayer describe perfections as they are reflected through the Manifestations of God and as they reach us. Calling on a name like 'The Satisfier' is therefore less about defining God and more about opening ourselves to a quality of divine reality that we genuinely need and that God genuinely embodies, even if our understanding of it remains partial.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer