Marzieh Nabil Carpenter Gail (1908-1993) - second child born of the first Persian-American marriage in the Baháí Faith; traveled with Martha Root for three weeks in Central Europe and the Balkans; five weeks of teaching in Bulgaria with Marion Jack; Shoghi Effendi, hoped that her marriage (with Howard Carpenter) would become the "vital link connecting the East and the West in the Baháí world."; first female reporter on the staff of a Tihrán newspaper. Fluent in English, French, Persian, and Arabic, and some Russian; served for a time as chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of Austria; translations: The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys (1945), The Secret of Divine Civilization (1957) with her father’ Memorials of the Faithful (1971), Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Bahá with a committee at the Baháí World Centre, and My Memories of Bahá’u’lláh (1982); books: The Sheltering Branch (1959), Khánum: The Greatest Holy Leaf (1981), Dawn Over Mount Hira (1976), Other People, Other Places (1982); The Three Popes (1969), Persia and the Victorians (1951), Six Lessons in Islam (1953), Summon Up Remembrance (1987), Arches of the Years (1991), Bahá’í Glossary (1955), and Avignon in Flower: 1309—1403 (1966).

As a little girl Marzich Khanum wrote a letter to the Master: "Dear Abdu’l-Bahá, I love you. I hope you will come to see us." And He wrote His reply in Persian on the same letter, turning it into a Tablet: "O God, make Marzieh, Razieh," voicing His desire that she who is pleasing to God (Marzieh) might be well pleased with God (Razieh).

For the rest of her life the second child and eldest daughter born of the first Persian-American marriage in the Bahá’í Faith would devote herself with heart and soul to the Cause of God. Her parents, Persian diplomat Ali-Kuli Khan and Boston debutante Florence Breed, were called upon by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to unite East and West. Like her parents before her Marzieh would spread the Bahá’í message in the United States, Europe, and Persia, seeking always to promote greater understanding between two cultures, Persia being only slightly less obscure in the West than the Cause she championed.

Her parents’ position took her to the Versailles Peace Conference, where her father was a member of Persia’s delegation, and in Tihrán she was presented at the Court of the then Crown Prince Regent from whom she would one day receive a proposal of marriage. At age ten Marzieh left the United States with her family to spend her formative years in Paris, Constantinople, Tiflis, [1] and Tihrán. Her education was unorthodox, derived from a succession of tutors. Lacking other children to play with, she and her two siblings, Rahim and Hamideh, found companionship with each other and the adults around them.

Marzieh met and became friends with the future Guardian as he passed through France on his way to Oxford. Her parents had been nurtured by the Master with whom Marzieh and her siblings had been photographed. On her finger she wore a ring given to her by the Greatest Holy Leaf. Part of a small circle of Bahá’í families whose interests had become synonymous with those of the Faith, her love for the Holy Family would carry her throughout her life, and this love would eventually become devotion to the Universal House of Justice.

Suitors began to pursue Marzieh when she was as young as thirteen, but her par- ents, following the directives of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, wished her to pursue an education. Enrolled in Vassar College in 1925, Marzieh transferred to Mills College for her sophomore year when her family moved to California. In 1927 David Starr Jordan broke the quota on women to allow Marzieh to finish her last two years at Stanford University, where she was known among her classmates as "our Persian princess." Using the attention to great advantage, she and Howard Carpenter organized small weekly discussion groups on the Bahá’í Faith. In 1929 she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and obtained her BA "With Great Distinction”—the honor being the non-Latin equivalent of summa cum laude. In June 1929 she became Marzieh Carpenter.