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To these two outstanding contributions to the world's religious literature, occupying respectively, positions of unsurpassed preeminence among the doctrinal and ethical writings of the Author of the Baha'i Dispensation, was added, during that same period, a treatise that may well be regarded as His greatest mystical composition, designated as the "Seven Valleys," which He wrote in answer to the questions of Shaykh Muhyi'd- Din, the Qadi of Khaniqayn, in which He describes the seven stages which the soul of the seeker must needs traverse ere it can attain the object of its existence. (140:1) The "Four Valleys," an epistle addressed to the learned Shaykh Abdu'r- Rahman- i- Karkuti; the "Tablet of the Holy Mariner," in which Baha'u'llah prophesies the severe afflictions that are to befall Him; the "Lawh- i- Huriyyih" (Tablet of the Maiden), in which events of a far remoter future are foreshadowed; the "Suriy- i- Sabr" (Surih of Patience), revealed on the first day of Ridvan which extols Vahid and his fellow- sufferers in Nayriz; the commentary on the Letters prefixed to the Surihs of the Qur'an; His interpretation of the letter Vav, mentioned in the writings of Shaykh Ahmad- i- Ahsa'i, and of other abstruse passages in the works of Siyyid Kazim- i- Rashti; the "Lawh- i- Madinatu't- Tawhid" (Tablet of the City of Unity); the "Sahifiy- i- Shattiyyih"; the "Musibat- i- Hurufat- i- 'Aliyat"; the "Tafsir- i- Hu"; the "Javahiru'l- Asrar" and a host of other writings, in the form of epistles, odes, homilies, specific Tablets, commentaries and prayers, contributed, each in its own way, to swell the "rivers of everlasting life" which poured forth from the "Abode of Peace" and lent a mighty impetus to the expansion of the Bab's Faith in both Persia and Iraq, quickening the souls and transforming the character of its adherents.
(140:2)
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