(1947) Rabia Martin directed Sufi groups in the United States, South America and Australia. During 1946, at the age of seventy-five, Rabia Martin made plans to travel to India to meet Meher Baba and work out the details of setting up a new organization for Sufism in America and Australia. An Australian Sufi and writer, Francis Brabazon, was sent by the leader of the Sufis in Australia, Baron Von Frankenburg, to California to accompany her to India. Soon, however, it became clear that she was too ill to travel, and she was forced to give up her plan to meet Baba in India. The doctors had diagnosed that she was dying of cancer.
In 1947, a few days before July 23rd, Rabia Martin’s birthday, Meher Baba sent a message of blessing to her. Her daughter, Etta, was with her then and recalled: “I do remember one night when she lay very ill in my home, that a cablegram came from Baba in which he blessed her. I also think it was around her birthday time too. This message was wonderful for Murshida. The light that came into her eyes, and her happiness was beyond words.”
Meher Baba’s message was a great consolation to Rabia Martin before her death. She passed away peacefully on August 31st, a little more than a month after her 76th birthday. Rabia Martin was not destined to meet Meher Baba in person this life. But she achieved her deepest wish by bringing Sufism in America and the Western world under the guidance of the Avatar. She entrusted her work to the successor she named a month before her death, Ivy Oneita Duce.
Lord Meher, Bhau Kalchuri, Original Publication, Vol. 9, pp. 3182 – 3183.
Eruch Jessawala joined Beloved Baba on August 31, 2001.