UmmZakariya
15-03-2006, 11:43 AM
Once upon a spy, 10.3.06
http://www.ethnicmedia.co.uk/Eastern_Eye/
Noor Inayat Khan was among the first British Muslim women to commit acts of ‘terrorism’ in the West. But the stark difference between her and the terrorists of today is that she was a secret agent working for the British government during World War II, and she gave up her life for Britain.
She was even honoured with the George Cross in 1949 for her extraordinary acts of courage and bravery.
The complete picture of Noor’s unique story has been pieced together only now, 60 years after her death at the hands of Nazi Germans, in a book by journalist-author Shrabani Basu.
And this week, Eastern Eye reveals the life of the war hero that Britian forgot.
The book Spy Princess traces the life of the princess-turned-undercover British agent, a descendant of the South Indian king Tipu Sultan. It was released by the Indian High Commissioner to Britain Kamalesh Sharma at the Nehru Centre in London last Wednesday (March 1).
Basu points to the resonance Noor’s life has in today’s climate of Muslims being associated with terror. She told Eastern Eye: “Her story becomes all the more relevant today, when Muslims are being characterised as those who blow themselves up or blow up others.
“Here is a truly inspirational icon for British Muslim youth who fought for freedom and made the ultimate sacrifice for her country. It is yet another reminder for us not to paint an entire religion with the same brush.”
Noor spent the first few years of her life in a house in London before her family moved to Paris. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, had left India and the family’s warrior tradition set by Noor’s great-great-great grandfather Tipu Sultan – who fought against the British to save his kingdom of Mysore during the Raj. Hazrat Khan became a Sufi preacher who was advised by his guru to spread his message in the West.
Noor grew up within this pacifist strain of Islam that preached non-violence and meditation. When Germany invaded France in 1940, she made the uncharacteristic choice to go down the path of violence in favour of freedom and to defeat the fascist forces.
She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, the women’s wing of Britain’s Royal Air Force, and was soon whisked away by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as the first female radio operator to infiltrate Nazi-occupied France. Her mission was to transmit clandestine reports from Paris back to the British headquarters in Baker Street in London.
As Basu dug deeper into Noor’s training as an SOE agent, she says she was constantly struck by her exceptional bravery. “The amazing thing about Noor was that she was not obliged, either by her pacifist roots or nationality, to take on this fight. But she chose to accept a mission that she knew would almost certainly end in her death because the ‘F Section’ of the SOE, under which she was deployed, had a high casualty rate.”
Basu, who spent three years researching Noor’s life from recently de-classified documents in the National Archives and through interviews with surviving members of her family and the relatives of war-time contemporaries, reveals how she was able to reconcile the contradictions in her life. She said: “While her Sufi roots told her it was a sin to lie, she had to live with a completely false identity of a children’s nurse named Madeleine during her mission. Noor showed immense strength of character, and her Sufi upbringing helped her cope with the enormously inhumane torture she suffered at the hands of the Gestapo (Nazi secret police).”
Within days of her arrival in Paris on the undercover mission, her circuit leader and several colleagues were arrested and Noor found herself all alone. Instead of heading back to England, as her seniors suggested, she refused to abandon her post and single-handedly carried out the work of six radio operators.
The work of this brave 30-year-old spy came to an end when she was captured in June 1943. Ten months later, Noor was shot in the Dachau concentration camp in Poland. The account of her months in prison make gruesome reading, as the author recounts Nazi attempts at breaking this “tigress”. She was shackled, starved and beaten but she never talked.
While Paris has a square named after this war heroine, Britain seems to have forgotten one of its bravest soldiers. Basu is now part of an effort to get a blue plaque installed at Noor’s childhood home in Bloomsbury in London.
Basu, who sees Noor’s story as a true victory of freedom, said: “They [Nazis] got absolutely no information from her. She was the ultimate winner because they failed to break her spirit.”
see also:
http://www.64-baker-street.org/agents/agent_fany_noor_inayat_khan.html
http://www.ethnicmedia.co.uk/Eastern_Eye/
Noor Inayat Khan was among the first British Muslim women to commit acts of ‘terrorism’ in the West. But the stark difference between her and the terrorists of today is that she was a secret agent working for the British government during World War II, and she gave up her life for Britain.
She was even honoured with the George Cross in 1949 for her extraordinary acts of courage and bravery.
The complete picture of Noor’s unique story has been pieced together only now, 60 years after her death at the hands of Nazi Germans, in a book by journalist-author Shrabani Basu.
And this week, Eastern Eye reveals the life of the war hero that Britian forgot.
The book Spy Princess traces the life of the princess-turned-undercover British agent, a descendant of the South Indian king Tipu Sultan. It was released by the Indian High Commissioner to Britain Kamalesh Sharma at the Nehru Centre in London last Wednesday (March 1).
Basu points to the resonance Noor’s life has in today’s climate of Muslims being associated with terror. She told Eastern Eye: “Her story becomes all the more relevant today, when Muslims are being characterised as those who blow themselves up or blow up others.
“Here is a truly inspirational icon for British Muslim youth who fought for freedom and made the ultimate sacrifice for her country. It is yet another reminder for us not to paint an entire religion with the same brush.”
Noor spent the first few years of her life in a house in London before her family moved to Paris. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, had left India and the family’s warrior tradition set by Noor’s great-great-great grandfather Tipu Sultan – who fought against the British to save his kingdom of Mysore during the Raj. Hazrat Khan became a Sufi preacher who was advised by his guru to spread his message in the West.
Noor grew up within this pacifist strain of Islam that preached non-violence and meditation. When Germany invaded France in 1940, she made the uncharacteristic choice to go down the path of violence in favour of freedom and to defeat the fascist forces.
She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, the women’s wing of Britain’s Royal Air Force, and was soon whisked away by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as the first female radio operator to infiltrate Nazi-occupied France. Her mission was to transmit clandestine reports from Paris back to the British headquarters in Baker Street in London.
As Basu dug deeper into Noor’s training as an SOE agent, she says she was constantly struck by her exceptional bravery. “The amazing thing about Noor was that she was not obliged, either by her pacifist roots or nationality, to take on this fight. But she chose to accept a mission that she knew would almost certainly end in her death because the ‘F Section’ of the SOE, under which she was deployed, had a high casualty rate.”
Basu, who spent three years researching Noor’s life from recently de-classified documents in the National Archives and through interviews with surviving members of her family and the relatives of war-time contemporaries, reveals how she was able to reconcile the contradictions in her life. She said: “While her Sufi roots told her it was a sin to lie, she had to live with a completely false identity of a children’s nurse named Madeleine during her mission. Noor showed immense strength of character, and her Sufi upbringing helped her cope with the enormously inhumane torture she suffered at the hands of the Gestapo (Nazi secret police).”
Within days of her arrival in Paris on the undercover mission, her circuit leader and several colleagues were arrested and Noor found herself all alone. Instead of heading back to England, as her seniors suggested, she refused to abandon her post and single-handedly carried out the work of six radio operators.
The work of this brave 30-year-old spy came to an end when she was captured in June 1943. Ten months later, Noor was shot in the Dachau concentration camp in Poland. The account of her months in prison make gruesome reading, as the author recounts Nazi attempts at breaking this “tigress”. She was shackled, starved and beaten but she never talked.
While Paris has a square named after this war heroine, Britain seems to have forgotten one of its bravest soldiers. Basu is now part of an effort to get a blue plaque installed at Noor’s childhood home in Bloomsbury in London.
Basu, who sees Noor’s story as a true victory of freedom, said: “They [Nazis] got absolutely no information from her. She was the ultimate winner because they failed to break her spirit.”
see also:
http://www.64-baker-street.org/agents/agent_fany_noor_inayat_khan.html