Jean Wilkey

Mona Mahmoudnejad: Through the Eyes of a Child

by KIMIYA ROOHANI

Maha was only six years old and in her first year of school when she first met Mona Mahmoudnejad, who had been invited to stay as a guest in her parents’ home in Isfahan. Just one year later, the lovely young woman Maha met would meet her death on a hangman’s noose, executed for loyalty to the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith and for membership in its community.

I spoke with Maha today. She sat next to a portrait of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and a picture of the ten martyred women of Shiraz as she reminisced about that encounter. As Maha remembers it, Mona was quite extraordinary; the depth of her joy and excitement seemed greater than for most and her encounters with people more intense than what Maha had seen others experience. Maha recalled the following incident, which she witnessed as a child:

One time, Mona invited me to a room where she was meeting her friend. When they met one another, they acted like spiritual lovers, embracing one another, whispering in one another’s ears about their dreams; and, at the end, of it all, weeping in one another’s arms. As a child, I could not understand such a friendship at all! Everything about the encounter of these two girls seemed strange but also wonderful to me.

Maha also noticed how much time Mona would dedicate to preparing gifts for her friends, often in the form of cards on which she inscribed various passages from the Bahá’í Writings. Mona gave such gifts to many people, and so did her father, who was skilled at Persian calligraphy. These thoughtful gestures were intended to give the Bahá’ís courage and to increase their resilience at a time when the community was facing many difficulties.

Mona’s kindness to people was always guided by delicacy and wisdom, Maha recalls. When she was a child, Maha, because of her white skin and long blonde hair, rare features among Iranians, sometimes received more attention from adults than did her younger sister, who had short dark hair and brown eyes. But when Mona met the two children, she opened her arms to the often neglected sister.

Maha recalled that Mona insisted on taking time to pray in whatever house her family visited. She sometimes sat on the floor or lay against a wall as she did, and often wept as she engaged in her devotions. Some who witnessed this felt wary, suspicious even, of Mona. Maha remembers opening her eyes during her own prayers to see what posture or facial expression Mona would assume next! “People would sometimes ask my parents,” she recalled, “‘Is she in love? Is she madly in love?’” To everyone who witnessed it, Mona’s behavior as she said her prayers seemed different from that of most people.

As for what happened at the end, Maha thinks that they must have felt completely free. Mona needed to ‘stay connected’ at all times, so Maha is sure that Mona whispered prayers even when they were in the taxi on their way to the place of execution.

When I asked Maha how meeting Mona had influenced her life, she shared with me that she continued to meet Mona in her dreams at critical moments in her life, and that Mona’s appearance always helped her make decisions. So powerful was Maha’s faith in Mona’s presence in her life that I left my brief interview with Maha believing that Mona’s soul could serve as a source of confirmation for me, too, in all my endeavors!