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ISOBEL SABRI
1924—1992
HEARTS PROFOUNDLY SADDENED LOSS GREATLY LOVED OUTSTANDING PROMOTER CAUSE GOD, MEMBER INTERNATIONAL TEACHING CENTRE ISOBEL SABRI. HER STERLING INDEFATIGABLE PIONEERING AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES OVER SEVERAL DECADES FIRST BRITISH ISLES AND THEN AFRICA CROWNED BY UNFORGETTABLE HIGHLY VALUED CONTRIBUTIONS WORLD CENTRE SINCE 1983. INTEGRITY HER EXEMPLARY LIFE POWERFULLY REINFORCED HER
In 2002 the Afnan Library Trust jointly purchased with the National Spiritual Assembly of the United Kingdom :1 large property at Bridge House, Tonbridge, Kent, to house the library.
FEARLESS VALIANT UNFLAGGING EFFORTS CHAMPION TRUTHS AND DEFEND INTERESTS FAITH SHE DEARLY CHERISHED. PRAYING HOLY SHRINES CONTINUED PROGRESS HER LUMINOUS SOUL ABHA KINGDOM WHERE RICH REWARD ASSUREDLY AWAITS HER. ADVISE HOLD MEMORIAL SERVICES HER HONOUR HOUSES OF WORSHIP AND COMMUNITIES THROUGHOUT BAHA’I’ WORLD.
Universal House ofjustice June 18, 1992
sobel Sabri (née Locke) was born in
Fresno, California, on July 19, 1924. She passed away early in the morning ofjune 18, 1992, after forty-seven years of service to Bahá’u’lláh.
Isobel spent her youth in Burlingame and San Mateo and studied at Stanford University, graduating in International Relations and Journalism in the class of 1946. However, she remembered her time at Stanford for a far more vital acquisition of knowledge—that of Bahá’u’lláh. She changed majors many times searching for truth, and she was blessed in meeting Farrukh 10215, from whom she contracted a rapturous love of Bahá’u’lláh. She embraced the Faith at the Geyserville Summer School on July 8, 1945. She wrote of the event, “The meaning of spiritual rebirth was a clear and shining reality to me.”3
In 1946 Isobel pioneered to the United Kingdom, arriving in Edinburgh in the harsh winter at the end of that year. She was the first pioneer to Scotland and served on Edinburgh’s first Local Spiritual Assembly in 1948. She pioneered to other towns in
3 Isobel described her search and her discovery of the Faith in an article entitled uAn Agnostic’s Quest for Truth."
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4 THE BAHA’I’ WORLD
the British Isles during that astonishing Six Year Plan.
In 1951 Isobel and Hassan Sabri were married, and they pioneered to Africa to assist with the goals of the newly inaugurated Two Year Plan. Isobel had, since childhood, been determined to go to Africa. She had heard much about it from her father who was the son ofa missionary in Port Said. Her wish was fulfilled in service to the Faith; she and Hassan settled first in Dar es Salaam in the Tanganyika Protectorate (Tanzania), and later during the Ten Year Crusade they went to Uganda where they served until 1973. From 1973 to 1983 they lived in Kenya.
During her years in Africa Isobel served on the Local Assemblies ofDar es Salaam, Kampala, Masaka, and Kyambogo; and For four years she was a member of the Regional National Spiritual Assembly of Central and East Africa, two of these as chairman. For periods when ‘Ali Nakhjavani was out of Uganda, Isobel assisted the Hand of the Cause of God Mt’isa Banani and traveled energetically on behalf of the Faith throughout the country In 1965 the Hands of the Cause of God in Africa appointed her to the Auxiliary Board, and in 1968 the Universal House of Justice appointed her to the Continental Board of Counsellors, For which she corresponded until her appointment to the International Teaching Centre in 1983. She served on that body until her passing.
She was fortunate to be present at many of the landmarks of the second and third Epochs of the Formative Age: the first Intercontinental Bahá’í Conference in Kampala, followed by the second conference in Chicago in 1953; the dedications of the American and African Temples; the first International Convention and World Congress in 1963; and the Centenary of the arrival of Baha’u’llah in the Holy Land
in 1968, to name a few. But it was not in attending these great expressions of collective achievement that Isobel’s merit as a servant of Bahá’u’lláh will be measured or remembered.
Isobel will be remembered for her unremitting dedication to the Faith and her unstinting efforts to serve in ways that met her own high expectations of herself. Her life was characterized and blessed by meticulous daily toil for the Cause of God. Her understanding of the writings was deep and ever deepening. As a speaker she spoke from the heart and was accurate, logical, and compelling. She was fiercely loyal to the beloved Guardian and the Universal House ofjustice.
The love she had for Baha’u’llah extended beyond the immediate domain of the Bahá’í world to find expression in the raising of her children, Marion and Keith. For her there was no duality; the Bahá’í teachings informed every aspect of her life. After spending a day game—spotting or relaxing on a beach with her, one sometimes had a sense that she was worshipping. Her often girlish delight in the beauty of the world was one of her most endearing characteristics. On one occasion, on a onelane mountain road in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo), she persuaded a fellow pioneer to pull over so that she could look more closely at some flowers. A minute or so later a convoy ofarmy trucks came past at great speed from the opposite direction. On another occasion in Uganda 3 similar whim took her and her companions on a detour into a game reserve for a night, during which a retreating army swept along their route looting and pillaging. It seems that her enthusiasm and delight in the beauty of nature had saved her life and prolonged her service to the Faith.
Some of the greatest sources of pleasure for Isobel were the victories of the Bahá’ís
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IN MEMORIAM 1992—1997 5
she encountered in her travels for the Continental Board of Counsellors in Africa and later for the International Teaching Centre. She spoke warmly with delight and admiration for the depths of their faith and the examples of their radiant acquiescence, sacrifice, and ingenuity. It must have given her great satisfaction to have died in the saddle as it were. Her last service was in her beloved Africa, where she attended conferences of Auxiliary Board members in Nairobi, Lusaka, and Johannesburg in January 1992.
Perhaps the most startling aspect of Isobel’s service to the Faith is that all of it was performed in uncertain health. From the age of nineteen she had defied the best advice of the medical profession. Fortyeight years ofchronic intestinal illness and intermittent asthma she treated as simply obstacles to overcome. She was occasionally concerned that her fellow Bahá’ís might, out of worry for her condition, deprive her of opportunities to serve. Few people knew the extent of her illnesses.
Isobel Sabri will be remembered for her services to the Faith of God, but the challenge she faced is one common to us all. She once wrote:
Over the years I have come to an everclearer realization that we must trust and listen to the voice that is within us. In the Holy Writings Baha’u’llah says, “We are closer to man than his own life vein.” 1 have gradually learned with ever-increasing certainty that God is accessible at all times and that the means for sifting our human imaginings from His divine promptings are also there within us, closely related to the degree to which we lay ourselves aside and place ourselves wholly in His hands, desiring only what He desires. Life then becomes a ceaseless and stimulating challenge to
find and cling to His Will for us, which is constantly changing and evolving as we mature in spiritual understanding and experience. How often we falter; how impossible progress seems! But how Merciful, how Compassionate is He.
Hasmn and Keith Salm'
