I had left the church (Methodist) when I was 18, having decided that all the revealed religions were all right – or all wrong: I saw only the similarities.  I then went up to Oxford in 1945 where there was a lot of Bahá’í activity.  I didn’t knowingly meet any Bahá’ís but while there I formulated what constituted my beliefs for many years.  They were parallel to Bahá’í beliefs. 

I married and had children.  My husband was a radar engineer.  I knew Dorothy Brown before she was a Bahá’í, when we both lived in Ringwood.  I was given a pamphlet by a mutual friend which came from the house of Mr Azizi, the martyr.  It was one of Shoghi Effendi’s letters which talked about this ‘movement’ (I didn’t even see it as a religion at that time) which had the answer to bringing peace to the world.  Shortly after, my husband was transferred to the Isle of Wight and I didn’t follow it up.  About two years later he was seconded to the Iranian government to train the technicians at Mehrabad Airport and I thought I would be able to find out more about the Bahá’ís there.

When I got to Iran, I realised it would be dangerous to draw attention to the Bahá’ís there.  When we were recalled to the UK about 18 months later, I commented to one of my colleagues (I had been the permanent supply teacher at the British School in Teheran) that my one regret was that I had not been able to find out more about the Bahá’ís while in Iran.  She said, “Well, you’ve been working with Christine Changizi (daughter of Rose and John Wade) all this time.”  Christine had told me a little about the Faith. She gave me the address of the London Bahá’í Centre at 27 Rutland Gate, which I lost on the journey home with the young children.  I was in Iran from 1966-67.  We returned three weeks before the coronation of the Shah and all the celebrations at Persepolis.  I had visited the district of Nur and some of the places mentioned in The Dawnbreakers, and Shiraz, but didn’t know their significance then. 

I had been back in the UK for just over a year when I wrote to the person who gave me the original leaflet and said, “Where are they?”  She passed my letter to Dorothy Brown who paged Kitty Glover at Teaching Conference (December 1968).  Kitty had pioneered to the Isle of Wight about a year previously and was the only Bahá’í on the island. 

When she got back, she phoned me.  We met up and she invited several people over to the Island to meet with me.  She was a little confused because I didn’t have questions.  They were telling me what I already believed!  I just had to make up my mind whether Bahá’u’lláh was the return of all the Messengers of the past, as He claimed.  Kitty gave me Bahá’í Revelation and the Kitáb-i-Íqán.  I declared just before the fast in 1969, or perhaps 1970. 

It had been necessary for me to go to Iran before I became a Bahá’í, otherwise I would have found the Writings too flowery. 

My acceptance was purely logical at that stage.  There were three possibilities: 

1. Bahá’u’lláh’s claim was wrong and He knew it was wrong, which would have made Him a charlatan. 

2. It was wrong but He thought it was right, which would have made Him a fool, 

3. or He was right. 

After reading about His life and some of His writings, I had no choice but to accept Him. 

I lived on the Isle of Wight for 35 years with a spell of three years as a pioneer in Northern Cyprus (1990-1993).  

At first my husband had said, “It’s alright for you, but leave me and the kids out of it.”  So, the boys were brought up with Bahá’í principles but not as Bahá’ís.  My husband, Pat, eventually became a Bahá’í, although he didn’t really deepen.  It enabled me, however, to go as a short-term pioneer to Northern Cyprus after I returned to the UK.  I went originally for six months, to make up the one year started by David and Barbara Lewis who had been to the South (Cyprus). But I found, when I got there, that I needed to get a job – really as a role-model – and I stayed for three years.   

Because Northern Cyprus was a Muslim country, I had arranged to meet up with the Assistant for North Cyprus, Susan Mokhles from Adana (Turkey).  Her family was having problems with the Turkish officials who were trying to deport them because they were Bahá’ís.  The Universal House of Justice had told her to fight this decision, but she herself could not then travel to Cyprus.  She asked me to work with the women – and to keep a fairly low profile – which made the job necessary.   I was working with one of the private universities in Girne, Kyrenia.   

I was not able to travel to the South at all, although the NSA members from the South could come to the North for the day for National Spiritual Assembly meetings.  That concession came about the time I arrived in Cyprus in 1990.   

I went to the 1992 celebrations in Haifa as part of the Cyprus contingent. 

I was able to visit Edirne twice.  I stayed in the small cottage in the garden of the caretaker in 1990 on my way to Cyprus.  The second time was when we visited on the way to Haifa, and at that time Susan and her family were given Turkish citizenship and allowed to stay. 

Susan hosted the meetings in Edirne at that time in the refurbished House that Bahá’u’lláh had lived in. 

On my way to Cyprus in 1990, I had stayed with Sureyya Guler, the daughter of Sami Doktoroglu who had been commissioned by Shoghi Effendi to acquire the houses in which Bahá’u’lláh had lived in Edirne.  Pauline Senior had arranged this for me.  She knew Sureyya when she stayed with her in Eccles in her student days. 

Susan Mokhles had made friends with Mesut Merter who was the Cypriot Consul to Mersin, and when they married, I was a witness at their wedding. 

Adele Stevens-Cox (now Malpas) met up with Sureyya and her husband Bedriç in Edirne after the Bulgarian Summer School in 2006 and stayed with them, then travelled to Istanbul on the route that Bahá’u’lláh had travelled in the reverse direction, past the bridges He had crossed, and visited a mosque that He had visited. 

During the time I was on the Isle of Wight we formed two local Spiritual Assemblies.  One was in South Wight and the other was in Medina.  Later the local government boundaries changed and the Island became one, so there was only one assembly.  

__________________ 

Marion Klyne

May 2011

Marion passed away in July 2024

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