Qudsiyyih Ashraf was born in Majidabad, near Tehran, the daughter of Mirza Fazl'ullah Khan and Ṣafiya-Monavvar Khānom.

In 1911, she traveled to the United States, in the care of an American Bahá'i, lawyer Louis G. Gregory, for the last leg of the journey (England to New York).

[1] Ashraf attended the Lewis Institute in Chicago,[3] the first woman from Iran to hold a scholarship from the American Bahá'i community, through the Persian-American Educational Society.

[1] She was present at the laying of the cornerstone at the Wilmette Bahá'i House of Worship in 1912, an event presided over by faith leader ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

[11][12] In 1918, before she returned to Iran, she taught science at a public school and organized a Girl Scout troop in Flemington, New Jersey.