September 28. On this date in 1939, Martha Root died. Shoghi Effendi had called her "the foremost travel teacher in the first Bahá'í Century" and posthumously named her a Hand of the Cause. Martha Root had met with Queen Marie of Romania, who Bahá'í sources claim was "the first member of a royal family to embrace the Bahá’í Faith," although her daughter, Princess Ileana of Romania, disputes this claim.

 

September 28. On this date in 1939, Martha Root died. Shoghi Effendi had called her "the foremost travel teacher in the first Bahá'í Century" and posthumously named her a Hand of the Cause. Martha Root had met with Queen Marie of Romania, who Bahá'í sources claim was "the first member of a royal family to embrace the Bahá’í Faith," although her daughter, Princess Ileana of Romania, disputes this claim.

It is perfectly true that my mother, Queen Marie, did receive Miss Martha Root several times…..She came at the moment when we were undergoing very great family and national stress. At such a moment it was natural that we were receptive to any kind of spiritual message, but it is quite incorrect to say that my mother or any of us at any time contemplated becoming a member of the Baha’i faith.

As regards her travel teaching, Shoghi Effendi noted Martha Root's cooperation with Esperanto societies as "an excellent means of spreading the Cause."

Martha Root also authored a number of works, including one about Táhirih, titled Táhirih the Pure, wherein she notes...

The question of her returning to her husband arose, and this she absolutely refused to do. Try as they might, she would not consent to be reconciled with her husband, Mullá Muhammad. She gave as her reason: "He, in that he rejects God's religion, is unclean; between us there can be naught in common."

While the Administrative Order publicly eschews involvement in partisan politics, it has no reservations about routinely using its media outlets to proudly tout unelected royal leaders who are Bahá'í.

For example, on February 19, 1968, Malietoa Tanumafili II, one of Samoa's four paramount chiefs, became a Bahá'í.

Also, On April 24, 2017, the Bahá'í World News Service published a story about Djaouga Abdoulaye, who "became a Baha’i in the 1980s when the Faith initially came to Benin." The news report states that he was enthroned High Chief in July of 2016, assuming a "position of moral and customary authority for the approximately 100,000 Fulani living in the area."

While rare and not promoted in the media outlets of the Administrative Order, there have been Bahá'ís who have been elected to office, such as Ted Livingston, who was the first Bahá’í in the United States to be the mayor of a city when he was elected Mayor of Cottonwood Falls, Kansas.