A Secret Wedding in Haifa

A retelling for children, based on The Priceless Pearl by Rúḥíyyih Khánum.

On 25 March 1937, in the city of Haifa, a young woman named Mary Maxwell was married to Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith. Almost no one knew it was going to happen.

Mary had grown up in Montreal, in Canada. Her mother, May Maxwell, had been one of the first people from the West to travel to the Holy Land to meet 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Her father, William Sutherland Maxwell, was an architect. 'Abdu'l-Bahá had stayed in their home when He visited Canada in 1912. Mary had come to Haifa with her mother on pilgrimage.

Shoghi Effendi kept the wedding a secret. Only his parents, Mary's parents, and a brother and two sisters of his knew about it.

That afternoon Shoghi Effendi and Mary drove together to Bahjí, to the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh. There he asked her for his ring, which she had been wearing hidden around her neck, and he put it on her finger. He gathered up in a handkerchief the dried flower petals that had been placed inside the Shrine, and he chanted a prayer. Then they drove back to Haifa.

They were married in the room that had belonged to the Greatest Holy Leaf, Bahíyyih Khánum, the sister of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who had passed away a few years before. Rúḥíyyih Khánum later wrote that there was no celebration, no flowers, no elaborate ceremony, no wedding dress and no reception. Shoghi Effendi's mother and father signed the marriage paper to show that they agreed. Mary's own parents were not there. Afterwards she went back across the street to join them, and Shoghi Effendi went off to take care of his work.

That evening he came to dinner with Mary's family, as he usually did, and congratulated her parents. He gave her mother the handkerchief full of flower petals from the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh.

Only after the wedding did the news go out. A short message, sent in the name of Shoghi Effendi's mother, told the Bahá'ís in America. It used Mary's new name, Rúḥíyyih Khánum, which the Guardian had given her, and it said that the marriage had joined together East and West.

Shoghi Effendi came from a Persian family, in the East. Mary came from Canada, in the West. Rúḥíyyih Khánum wrote that what the Guardian stressed most about their marriage was that it had drawn East and West closer to each other.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Guardian's Quiet Wedding".

Khánum, R.. (1969). *The Priceless Pearl*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.