The youngest surviving daughter of Abdul Baha and Munireh Khanum (four out of nine). She was intelligent, had a wonderful sense of humour, and tremendous self-confidence. She loved to travel, meet people, and enjoy life, things that her husband, Mirza Ahmad Yazdi, had provided for her. Sadly, the couple remained childless. Ahmad Bey, as he was known, had been appointed honorary consul of Iran in Port Said where his main business was. They remained there until Abdul Baha passed away, whereupon the ladies of the household in Haifa asked her and her husband to come to Haifa and help with the running of the affairs of the Cause until Shoghi Effendi felt that he could take matters in hand. This they willingly did. (see Ruhi Afnan’s letter to the Spiritual Assembly of Tehran 1970)
In her later years, she was the only daughter of Abdul Baha who was still in the Cause and lived at the Master’s house, now the home of Shoghi Effendi and his wife Ruhiyyih Khanum.
One afternoon, while some members of the family, including my father and my late husband Hassan Shahid, were at Touba Khanum’s house, Munavar Khanum suddenly arrived upset and worried. She said that Ruhiyyih Khanum was pressuring her to donate everything she had to the Cause, not after her death, but right away during her lifetime. This had caused her a great deal of anguish as she was worried that she might one day, like her sisters, be “expelled” as well and asked to leave the Andaroun (as the family home was called), and she would have nothing to fall back on. At the time, Zia Khanum had been “expelled” and was living at her husband’s small home on Mount Carmel, and Touba Khanum was also “expelled” because her daughter Soraya had married Dr. Faizy Afnan, son of Forough Khanum (daughter of Baha’u’llah) and Sayed Ali Afnan.
Munavar Khanum, not wanting to give over her property during her lifetime and by going to see her sister Touba Khanum, was summarily “expelled” from the community. She spent the last years of her life in hotels, and finally at the Italian hospital in Haifa. Soraya, her niece, kept an eye on her and a maid came daily to attend to her and to take her out for drives.
I remember visiting her with my mother on one of my visits to Haifa. She was elderly and not very mobile, but her spirits were young. With a twinkle in her blue eyes and a lovely smile on her face, she started asking my mother whether she remembered an incident in which they were both involved in Egypt and which, at the time, had caused a lot of merriment. However, at that point, lunch arrived and I never heard the story that had brought back amusing memories of the past.
She died in 1971 at that same hospital.
Abdu'l-Baha's Family 