Baha’u’llah’s Commentary on a Verse of Rumi was revealed in the final years of the Edirne exile, a period marked by separation, tension, and the sharpening of spiritual identities. Addressed to Salman, the devoted courier who carried letters across vast distances, the tablet responds to his inquiry about a single line from Rumi: “Because the colorless has fallen captive to color, Moses has gone to war with Moses.”
Baha’u’llah takes this verse as a threshold into deeper questions of unity and multiplicity, exploring how divine oneness becomes refracted into the colors and conflicts of the contingent world. The introduction he offers is not only an explanation of mystical ideas but a reflection shaped by his own trials in Edirne, where the tension between shadow and light was not theoretical but lived.
Baha’u’llah’s commentary begins with Rumi’s line about the “colorless” becoming “captive to color.” He uses this verse to explore a simple but profound question: why does a world that comes from divine unity appear full of differences and conflicts?
He explains that in the divine realm there is only oneness. “Color” belongs to our world—the world of forms, reflections, and limitations. When the light of unity shines into this world, it appears in many different ways, just as one light can look different in different mirrors.
Baha’u’llah then shows how language helps us move toward unity. The phrase “no God is there…” clears away illusions. “…but He” reveals what is real. This movement from “no” to “but He” mirrors the soul’s journey from confusion to clarity.
Moses and Pharaoh are used as symbols, not historical figures. They show how the same divine light can appear as guidance in one heart and rejection in another. The difference lies not in the light, but in the mirror receiving it.
Baha’u’llah invites us to look past the “colors” of the world—its divisions and oppositions—and to notice the unity beneath them. When we shift our way of seeing, the world becomes a set of signs pointing back to the One.
For a short essay on this tablet, written for a general audience, see From Color to Colorless: Unity, Multiplicity, and the Art of Seeing.
For a scholarly introduction, see Juan Cole: Baha’u’llah’s Commentary on a Verse of Rumi.