Helen suggested to her friend and Bakhtiari tribal chief Yahya Khan, who gave Bakhtiar the Persian name "Laleh" in 1957.

Earlier, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 19, she met the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who encouraged her to pursue Islam personally and academically.

[8][9] When she was 26, she moved to Iran to study Sufism and Quranic Arabic at the University of Tehran under Nasr, who continued to mentor Bakhtiar for 30 years.

Bakhtiar wrote or translated over 150 books on Islam, including The Sense of Unity with Nader Ardalan, The Sublime Quran, and Sufi Expressions of the Mystic Quest.

Bakhtiar's translation attempts to take a female perspective, and to admit alternative meanings to Arabic terms that are ambiguous or the subject of scholarly debate.

In Chapter 4, Verse 34, concerning how husbands should treat rebellious wives, she translates the Arabic word daraba as "go away", rather than "beat" or "hit".

[12][13][16] Bakhtiar married Iranian architect Nader Ardalan in 1960, while she was a nondenominational Christian;[8][17] she eventually converted to Islam in 1964.

"[28] Shaida Khan, Executive Director of the Domestic Harmony Foundation, a non-profit organization working against domestic violence within Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities, stated, "...as a female scholar, she is considered a knowledgeable and meritorious persona in the annals of Islamic literature.

"[28] Ingrid Mattson, former president of the Islamic Society of North America, and Professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary, reflecting on Bakhtiar's life's work, said, "What could be more welcome than an examination of the life of a Muslim woman who is neither a silent victim of oppression, waiting to be saved by a secular revolution, nor an apologist for misguided ideology, but an intelligent woman of faith and integrity?

"[28] Marcia Hermansen, Director of the Islamic World Studies Program and Professor in the Theology Department at Loyola University Chicago, said, "One of things that strikes me about the [Sublime Quran] translation is how its reception in the "mainstream" Muslim community—at least in North America, made it less acceptable or even unacceptable for Muslim community leaders to simply repeat misogynistic interpretations.