Noor Anayat Khan: The princess who became a spy

[Behind the Aegis]

She was a Sufi pacifist who fought for Britain and died at the hands of the Gestapo. As a new biography separates truth from myth, Boyd Tonkin celebrates the remarkable Noor Anayat Khan

Published: 20 February 2006
This is the story of a young Indian Muslim woman who joined a secret organisation dedicated to acts of sabotage, subversion and terrorism across Europe. A fierce critic of British imperialism, she worked with passion and audacity to damage and disrupt the forces of law and order. Captured, she proved impenitent and uncontrollable. She died a horrific death in custody. And now, perhaps, is the right time to revisit the life of Princess Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, George Cross, Croix de Guerre with gold star, MBE: the British secret agent who was kicked into a "bloody mess" on the stone floors of Dachau concentration camp through the night of 13 September 1944, and then shot with the word "Liberté" on her lips. Hers, after all, is a remarkable chapter in the history of Muslims in Britain and the West.

For more than half a century, myths, misconceptions and outright fantasies have crowded around the memory of Noor Inayat Khan. She was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Through the frantic, terrifying summer of 1943, the untried 29-year-old spy found herself virtually in charge of Resistance communications in the Paris area as the Gestapo arrested cell after cell around her. The daughter of a famous Sufi mystic and musician, and an Indianised American mother, she was remembered by all as a "dreamy", sensitive child. Yet Noor the spy became a tigress whose bravery and defiance startled - and outraged - her German jailers and torturers. A few responded differently. When told during his postwar interrogation about her death in Dachau, Hans Josef Kieffer - head of the Gestapo headquarters in Paris - apparently broke down in tears.

Controversies and rumours still abound. Noor's posthumous career as a war heroine began in earnest in 1952, when her friend and comrade Jean Overton Fuller did her best to dispel the fog of confusion and misinformation left by her death in a book, Madeleine - Noor's Resistance codename. Maurice Buckmaster, Noor's colonel in SOE, and the top cryptographer Leo Marks both recalled her in their memoirs with an intense, possessive - but rather patronising - affection that often makes for more heat than light. Marks, briefed to expect as his latest apprentice a "potty princess", typically begins his recollections of their first encounter by writing that "no one had mentioned Noor's extraordinary beauty".

From her spellbound SOE trainers at Beaulieu Manor to the governor of Pforzheim jail who came almost to revere the prisoner he kept in chains, Noor left no one unmoved. Yet her quiet charisma made fancy corrupt fact. In recent years, two colourful novels have embroidered her tale with the interests and penchants of their authors: the French writer Laurent Joffrin's frankly romanticised All That I Have, and Shauna Singh Baldwin's more politically engaged The Tiger Claw.

more...

{Behind the Aegis: "I am glad I found this article. I post this in Noor Anayat Khan's and the DU'er "ayeshahaqqiqa"'s honor. Had ayeshahaqqiqa not informed me about this woman, I would have never recognized the name and passed the article over. Although Muslims were not the target of the Nazi war machine, there is at least one that gave her life to stop them...perhaps many more. Noor Anayat Khan is a martyr! She died for the principles of her faith. May her name ring through the ages!

Thank you ayeshahaqqiqa! Salaam!}

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Salaam

Your kind words have brought tears to my eyes.

I had just gotten an email about this book. I met Noor's brother, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. He talked about his sister, with whom he was very close. Pir Vilayat's father died when the children were very young-Noor was the oldest, and I think she was only 13. Times were very hard for them and their mother. Pir Vilayat talked of Noor's death, and how it had taken him years to forgive those who had tortured and killed her. He said he had finally been able to forgive the guards, because he realized they were psychopaths. He said he was still working on forgiving the French neighbor who had betrayed her for money. This was during a workshop on spiritual development, and his manner and the obvious struggle he had with this was quite moving. The last book he wrote was dedicated to his sister. He passed away in 2004. May Allah be pleased with him, and the work and Light he left behind for his mureeds.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. You deserved every word.

I have been posting here (DU) for awhile. You are one of the few people who have actually taught me something, and did it in such a way that was not condescending or offensive. Even when we disagree, you have shown nothing but respect for me as a poster and my opinion. The addition in your post shows your commitment to education. You have personalized my experience and allowed me to explore some areas I wouldn't have thought to venture into.

I have an immense amount of respect for you.