May Maxwell, the mother of Rúhíyyih Khánum, died only a few weeks

May Maxwell, the mother of Rúhíyyih Khánum, died only a few weeks after pioneering to South America, and was declared a martyr by Shoghi Effendi. (Her story can be read in the Bahá’í World, Vol. VIII, pp. 631-642.)  There is no question that May Maxwell devoted her entire life, subsequent to learning of the Faith, to teaching and serving it.

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‘Abdu’l-Bahá said of her: “May Maxwell is really a Bahá’í...She breathed no breath and uttered no word save in service to the Cause of God.” (p.

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638) The words of the Guardian make very clear for us why she was named a martyr: “And now as this year, so memorable in the annals of the Faith, was drawing to a close, there befell the American Bahá’í community, through the dramatic and sudden death of May Maxwell, yet another loss, which viewed in retrospect will come to be regarded as a potent blessing conferred upon the campaign now being so diligently conducted by its members.

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5 Laden with the fruits garnered through well-nigh half a century of toilsome service to the Cause she so greatly loved, heedless of the warnings of age and ill-health, and afire with the longing to worthily demonstrate her gratitude in her overwhelming awareness of the bounties of her Lord and Master, she set her face towards the southern outpost of the Faith in the New World, and laid down her life in such a spirit of consecration and self-sacrifice as has truly merited the crown of martyrdom.”

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