Noor-un-Nisa Enayat Khan - A Brave Moslem Allied Spy - WW2

[bujhee kom]

Noor Enayat Khan
02 January, 1914, Moscow - 13 September, 1944, Dachau

Who was Noor Inayat Khan?

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan was born in Moscow, Russian Empire in 1914, was the eldest of four (children) and the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan, notable Indian classical musician and prominent sufi teacher in Moscow and later in London, Paris and the U.S. Noor Inayat Khan’s mother was an American from Albuquerque, New Mexico, named Ameena Begum (birth name, Ora Meena Ray Baker), first follower of her brother American Yogi, Pierre Bernard and later her husband Inayat Khan, who was Bernard’s friend. Noor Inayat Khan’s younger brother Vilayat Khan later played the roll of the head of the Sufi Order International.

Noor-un Nisa was an incredible woman who gave her/sacrificed life for humanity. I was thankful to learn about her very recently through my wife. She was at her young age in Britain, in London and was a member of Churchill’s elite spy agency, Special Operations Executive (aka SOE), She was part of the section F (France) of the structure and was posted to the Directorate of Air Intelligence and soon deployed in Nazi-occupied France during the WW2. She was code named “Nora Baker”. She was a top spy for the British and the Allied forces. Noor eventually became the most wanted, hunted British agent in Paris by the Nazis. And she was eventually betrayed by some of her own colleagues and was caught by the Germans and eventually kept imprisoned in Dachau Concentration Camp. And eventually executed and her body was burnt along with other victims’ bodies. She was brutally raped and beaten by the SAS and Nazi and Hitler’s military intelligence officers. She was awarded the British George Cross and the French Croix de Guerre. Her courage and physical and mental strength surpasses my imagination. There is a bronze bust/half statue of Noor Inayat Khan in London’s Gordon Square Garden? Maybe Mohammed Chaudhury bhaiya, Nadim, Purbasha, Akhi (BCF), Revolver can go see it and take pictures and post it here...

A grand tribute to this great human soul.

This is what BBC History had to say…it’s kind of crude and dry sometimes… anyway

Khan was a wartime British secret agent of Indian descent who was the first female ….sent into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She was arrested and eventually executed by the Gestapo.
Noor Inayat Khan was born on New Year's Day 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother. She was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century Muslim ruler of Mysore. Khan's father was a musician and Sufi teacher. He moved his family first to London and then to Paris, where Khan was educated and later worked writing childrens' stories. Khan escaped to England after the fall of France and in November 1940 she joined the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). In late 1942, she was recruited to join SOE as a radio operator. Although some of those who trained her were unsure about her suitability, in June 1943 she was flown to France to become the radio operator for the 'Prosper' resistance network in Paris, with the codename 'Madeleine'. Many members of the network were arrested shortly afterwards but she chose to remain in France and spent the summer moving from place to place, trying to send messages back to London while avoiding capture.
In October, Khan was betrayed by a Frenchwoman (this is very strangely and rudely presented!!) and arrested by the Gestapo. She had unwisely kept copies of all her secret signals and the Germans were able to use her radio to trick London into sending new agents - straight into the hands of the waiting Gestapo. Khan escaped from prison but was recaptured a few hours later. In November 1943, she was sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany where she was kept in chains and in solitary confinement. Despite repeated torture, she refused to reveal any information. In September 1944, Khan and three other female SOE agents were transferred to Dachau concentration camp where on 13 September they were shot.
For her courage, Noor Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/histori...han_noor.shtml

Noor Memorial Trust
http://www.noormemorial.org/

From the independent, where I first read about her:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-8298194.html

And later seeing a book by Shrabani Basu called the spy Princess I believe…I didn’t read it though.

There may be a movie about her called - Enemy Of The Reich: The Noor Enayat Khan Story

[kalpurush]

Welcome back Javed!

An exciting spy she was! Thanks for sharing the infos.
Now I have to watch the Enemy Of The Reich: The Noor Enayat Khan Story

[Zeeshan]

bk is like the sherlock of bc....he gives 'doob' (dub?) and then resurfaces after immersing himself in a research...

welcome back bochada!! welcome back!!