Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan was a gentle girl, the great-great-great grand-daughter of the Tiger of Mysore, and the daughter of the Sufi teacher Inayat Khan, who founded the Sufi movement and Sufi Order in the West. When war broke out, in 1939, she was already achieving her first successes, As a harpist she had been heard at the Salle Erard. Her stories were appearing on the children's page of 'Le Figaro' and broadcast on Radiodiffusion Francaise, her 'Twenty Jataka Tales' being brought out by a London publisher; she was just founding a children's newspaper. Later she was betrayed to the Sicherheitsdienst and as a prisoner of importance was held at their HQ on the Avenue Foch. After a daring attempt to escape, via the roof, she refused to give parole and was sent to Germany, where she was kept for most of the time in chains, before being shot at Dachau. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Crois de Guerre.

Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944) was SOE's first woman wireless transmitter in German Occupied Paris during World War II. Posthumously awarded the George Cross MBE and Croix de Guerre with Gold Star for her outstanding wartime service and heroism on behalf of the Allied cause, Noor's remarkable and inspiring life have been commemorated in numerous war memorials, WWII histories, and several films. Born in 1914 to an American mother, Ora Ray Baker, and an Indian Sufi father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Noor was raised in France, studying musical composition, piano, and harp under Nadia Boulanger at the Ecole Normale de Musique, and child psychology at the Sorbonne. Her stories for children appeared in Le Figaro and were broadcast over Radiodiffusion Francaise, and her first book Twenty Jataka Tales was published in London. Her career as a writer was interrupted by the German invasion of France in 1940. The Inayat Khan family sought refuge in England, and Noor enlisted in the WAAF where she trained as a wireless transmitter. Her Parisian background and wireless skills led to her recruitment by the SOE (Special Operations Executive). After further training, in June, 1943, she was secretly flown back to France where she began her undercover work for the Allied cause under the code name "Madeleine." Constantly on the move between multiple locations and using false identities, Noor transmitted messages for the SOE's French and RF (R publique Fran aise) sections, and for De Gaulle's Free French network. Betrayed by an acquaintance, she was captured by the Gestapo in October, 1943, and held for prolonged interrogation at the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters in Paris. After repeated escape attempts, she was considered to be a dangerous prisoner and was transferred to Pforzheim prison in Germany, where she was held in maximum security and solitary confinement. As the war drew to an end in the fall of 1944, Noor was transported to Dachau. Her last word before execution was "Libert " This new edition of Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan: Madeleine includes previously unpublished material including a retrospective by Noor's brother, Vilayat Inayat Khan, the friendship of Noor and the author, and further research on Noor's life and the SOE.

A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Book of 2020 A Padma Lakshmi Favorite Read of 2021 The captivating story of the valiant Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of an Indian Sufi mystic and unlikely World War II heroine. Raised in a lush suburb of 1920s Paris, Noor Inayat Khan was an introspective musician and writer, dedicated to her family and to her father’s spiritual values of harmony, beauty, and tolerance. She did not seem destined for wartime heroism. Yet, faced with the evils of Nazi violence and the German occupation of France, Noor joined the British Special Operations Executive and trained in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance. She returned to Paris under an assumed identity immediately before the Germans mopped up the Allies’ largest communications network in France. For crucial months of the war, Noor was the only wireless operator there sending critical information to London, significantly aiding the success of the Allied landing on D-Day. Code-named Madeleine, she became a high-value target for the Gestapo. When she was eventually captured, Noor attempted two daring escapes before she was sent to Dachau and killed just months before the end of the war. Carefully distilled from dozens of interviews, newly discovered manuscripts, official documents, and personal letters, Code Name Madeleine is both a compelling, deeply researched history and a thrilling tribute to Noor Inayat Khan, whose courage and faith guided her through the most brutal regime in history.

This is the riveting story of Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of an Indian prince, Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore), who became a British secret agent for SOE during World War II. Shrabani Basu tells the moving story of Noor's life, from her birth in Moscow – where her father was a Sufi preacher – to her capture by the Germans. Noor was one of only three women SOE agents awarded the George Cross and, under torture, revealed nothing, not even her real name. Kept in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained together, Noor was starved and beaten, but the Germans could not break her spirit. Ten months after she was captured, she was taken to Dachau concentration camp and, on 13 September 1944, she was shot. Her last word was 'Liberté.'

We Rubies Four traverses continents and historic eras through Claire Ray Harper's vivid memoirs of life in the Inayat Khan family. With ancestral roots in both the East and the West, this remarkable family endured through World War I, the Great Depression, the traumatic events of World War II, and the postwar years, all the while cultivating a unique heritage of music and poetry, mysticism and heroism. Born Khairunisa Inayat Khan, Claire was the youngest child of American Ora Ray Baker and Indian Hazrat Inayat Khan. Ora Ray spent her young adult years in the household of her half-brother Pierre Bernard, who introduced yoga to the United States; and there she studied the vina under the tutelage of her future husband. Hazrat Inayat Khan belonged to a family of respected classical musicians and Sufi mystics. Traveling from his native India to Europe and the United States, Inayat Khan introduced new audiences to Eastern music and established the first school of Sufism in the West. After the marriage of Ora Ray and Hazrat Inayat Khan, their family lived in Russia and England before finding a more permanent home in France. Claire's older sister, Noorunisa Inayat Khan was a harpist and a poet, a student of child psychology and a published author of children's stories. During World War II, Noorunisa joined Great Britain's secret service to work undercover in occupied Paris under the code name Madeleine. Captured and tortured by the Nazis, she was executed at Dachau. To honor her courage and sacrifice, Noorunisa was posthumously awarded Great Britain's George Cross, and France's Croix de Guerre with Gold Star. The oldest brother Vilayat was a cellist and a student of philosophy and psychology who served as an officer on a British minesweeper in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Following postwar careers as a journalist and a diplomat, Pir Vilayat later traveled extensively, teaching meditation, writing and speaking on Sufism as the head of the Sufi Order International. Hidayat was Claires second brother; he continued the family musical and mystical traditions" as a violinist and a professor of music, a conductor and a composer, and as Representative-General of the International Sufi Movement. Claire trained as a pianist and a nurse, and during World War II she worked in British hospitals and in Dr. Heatley's pencillin laboratory. Following the war, Claire moved between the United States and Europe while working and raising her son David. David's own account carries the family history into the next generation. Book jacket.

Meet some of the women whose bravery saved Britain in the Second World War

Noor Inayat Khan was the eldest child of the renowned Indian philosopher Hazrat Inayat Kahn and his American wife Ameena Begum. Noor studied psychology and music in Paris and wrote stories for children, including the collection Twenty Jataka Tales, first published in 1939. Following the Nazi occupation of France, Noor was recruited by Winston Churchill's Special Operations Executive. As an undercover agent in Paris, she served as a key link between the SOE and the French Resistance. Betrayed and captured, she was executed at Dachau, posthumously receiving the George Cross and Croix de Guerre.