Mansour Derakhshani was a translator for the American army and a Baha'i from Jewish Background

Mansour Derakhshani (1923 - 2011)

Mansour was born in Hamedan, Iran during the month of Ala in 1923 (his father had made a note of his birth in the hand written Kitabi-Aqdas). His Bahá’í family were of early Jewish background.

The family had to endure much hardship for the Faith, as both the Jews, who didn’t like their change of religion, and the Muslims persecuted them. His mother, who was not a Bahá’í, but considered herself one whilst his father was alive, went back to being a staunch Jew after his death, when Mansour was about thirteen or fourteen years old. Nevertheless, although illiterate, she knew Bahá’í prayers by heart and would chant them while working in the kitchen, and suffered hardship along with the rest of the family. After his father passed away, Mansour had to start working immediately.

Because of Mansour’s great talent for languages, and his adaptability, he took a job as a translator for the American army when he was about eighteen, and later he went on to fight in the army when Iran was attacked. He then became a teacher.

He recounted a story that he had been given a job to home-teach a clergyman’s children in the south of Iran. While traveling there from Tehran, he met someone on the bus, who turned out to be a Bahá’í, and who invited him to stay with his family on arrival in the city. He was very successful in teaching the clergyman’s children, but the clergyman was astonished to find out that he was a Bahá’í, and such an honest and trustworthy man. He was also surprised that Mansour had already been invited to stay with someone else, when he didn’t know anyone in that town.

Later on he left this job and became a primary school teacher with the government, working a few years, but always longing to pioneer.

In 1950 he got married to another Bahá’í, Mahboobeh Khoshbin, whose parents were among the first teachers of the Jews in Iran, and whose longing was also to pioneer.

When the messages from the Guardian called for the Bahá’ís to pioneer, they were able to fulfil their desire, and in 1954, went to Saudi Arabia with their two young boys. They stayed there for two years, but suddenly the members of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Riadh were imprisoned. Since all the Local Spiritual Assembly members were in prison, they held their meetings and Feasts there, for a period of nineteen days!

His most cherished memory of those days was about one of the Persian believers in prison, who used to chant the ‘Tablet of Ahmad’ with such a melodious voice, that invariably at the end of his chanting they would note how the other prisoners were gathered around them, listening with reverence. Mansour asked that the ‘Tablet of Ahmad’, and the prayer ‘Create in me a pure heart, Oh my God’, be chanted at his funeral. While he was in prison, his pregnant wife and two boys were taken out of Saudi Arabia by another one of the Bahá’ís, at the behest of the beloved Guardian, and went to Bahrain, and were guests of the Hand of the Cause Mr Faizi, until Mansour was released and joined them there.

On their return to Iran, once again they went pioneering to Sanandaj, Kermanshah, and then Songhor, a small town near Kermanshah. Unfortunately Mansour wasn’t able to continue to work in Songhor and had to leave for Tehran, and his wife and four children - Farshid, Fariborz, May and Jena - followed him there sometime after.

His wife passed to the Abhá Kingdom in 1970. He remarried to Pourandokht Nafe in 1975. They left Iran in 1985 to become refugees in the United Kingdom.

His joyous smile and infectious laughter were well-loved by all. The spirit of his faith; his kind and unpresumptuous demeanor; his forgiving nature and the love he showed to everyone, drew all close to him. His hospitality and generosity knew no bounds and seeing the good in all was a norm for him. He was a confidante to young and old alike and he was well-respected by everybody. His positive outlook on life was exemplary, and a smile never left his lips. One of his famous sayings was “I am always well”, even when he was seriously ill.

Mansour passed to the Abhá Kingdom on 3rd April 2011 in York Hospital surrounded by family members. He is survived by his wife, four children, eight grandchildren and three great- grandchildren.