A poem about Noor Inayat Khan
By Bianca Manu, 2023In 2023 writer Bianca Manu researched the life and works of Noor Inayat Khan. This was for a project exploring statues and memorials in Camden. There is a bust of Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square, London. She wrote the poem below, with accompanying numbered notes, in response to what she found out.
In 2023 writer Bianca Manu researched the life and works of Noor Inayat Khan. This was for a project exploring statues and memorials in Camden. There is a bust of Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square, London. She wrote the poem below, with accompanying numbered notes, in response to what she found out.
Noor Inayat Khan by Bianca Manu
Born a Light, death for liberté, 1
Poet, pianist, and child psychologist, 2
A believer in the law of reciprocity, 3
Her life she gave in dignity. 4
A brilliant star within a constellation,
Defender of France and England under occupation. 5
A childhood filled with music and philosophy, 6
Noor advocated for humanity.
By many names she was known 7
No names she gave, a steel backbone. 8
Despite brutal and intense interrogation 9
Noor never betrayed the Prosper Operation. 10
The path of the heart is thorny,
Which leads in the end to bliss. 11
Noor related to sacrifice as an optimist.
A fierce defender of the nation.
Deserving of yearly celebration 12
A pacifist and truth-teller to the core
A descendant of the tiger of Mysore 13
An idealist who was underestimated
Codes for France and Britain, she deftly translated. 14
Her family was her biggest obligation.
Yet still, she preserved to protect both nations.
If she had lived, she would have written. 15
Because I live, words I’ve written:
In memory and honour
For Nora 16
In Memory and Peace
Dear Noor
Notes for the poem
In the poem above, Bianca has added numbers to the end of some of the lines. These correspond to the notes below.
1 Noor Inayat Khan’s full first name was Noor-un-nisa, مان یزیرگنا , a Muslim Arabic name translating as ‘Light of The Woman’. Noor’s father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was an Indian Sufi and musician; he founded the Inayati Order, a form of Islamic mysticism. Noor’s mother, an American poet, Ora Ray Baker, changed her name to ‘Sharda Ameena Begum after marriage. Before dying, Noor’s final words were Liberté. Basu, Shrabani. 2006. Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan (London, England: History Press) pg.17; pg21; pg221
2 Her father taught her Indian Ragas and she studied piano, harp, solfeggio, and harmony for six years (1931) at École Normale de Musique de Paris. She also studied child psychology at Sorbonne, University of Paris (1932).
3 Noor advocated for the ten foundational principles established by her father, including, ‘There is One Law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience together with a sense of awakened justice.’ Khan, Hazrat Inayat. 2020. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Centennial Edition) the Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Centennial Edition): Volume IV -- Healing and the Mind World (Amherst, NY: Suluk Press, Omega Publications) pg196.
4 There was no expectation for Noor to join the war effort, but she believed in justice and personal sacrifice for the benefit of humanity. Her sacrifice was acknowledged by Madame Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, the niece of General Charles de Gaulle, who paid tribute to Noor, “Nothing, neither her nationality nor the tradition of her family, none of these obliged her to take her position in the war. However, she chose it. It is our fight that she chose, that she pursued with an admirable and invincible courage’’. (Basu, pg241).
5 Germany’s invasion of Poland signaled the start of the Second World War (1939 – 1945), and the rise of totalitarianism. By 1940, France was occupied by Nazi Germany: “zone occupée" .Commager, Henry Steele. 1945. “The Story of the Second World War” [accessed 3rd October 2023]
6 Born with poets as parents, Noor often ‘wrote poems and stories [and]…little pieces of music which she would play on the piano’ during her childhood (Basu, pg33).
7 Between her family and serving as a Special Operations Executive (SOE), Noor had many names including Nora Baker, Madeline, Pirzadi and Babuli, (Basu, pg13; 143; 152; 212).
8 Khan Youskine, Noor’s cousin, remembered her as having a “steely strength of will”. Tsang, Amie. 2018. “Noor Inayat Khan,” The New York Times: B10(L)-B10(L) [accessed 1st October 2023]
9 Despite the torture she endured, Noor maintained discretion about her secret operative work. She was shot by an SS soldier, then cremated in Dachau, a concentration camp in Southern Germany. “Dachau.”[n.d.]. Ushmm.org [accessed 5th October 2023]
10 The circuit Noor was assigned to was Cinema, a sub circuit of the Prosper circuit, extending across the occupied zone of Northern France.
11 Aged 15 in 1929, Noor wrote a poem called "To Our Amma" for her mother; quoted in italics are two verses from Noor’s poem.
12 In 1946, Noor was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the most respected civilian award in France; On 5th April 1949, Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross; the British equivalent for exemplary services for the country; on Bastille day (14th July) in France, a military band plays outside her family home, Fazal Manzil in Suresnes, the western suburbs of Paris.
13 A descendant of Tipu Mysore (1751 – 1799), a ruler of the Muslim Kingdom of Mysore, based in South India, Mysore was victorious against the British and famously opposed the British East India Company.
14 In June 1940, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was set up by Winston Churchill for covert missions, including sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines. As a wireless operator, Noor was trained to transmit coded messages between secret agents in France and England. Balchin, D., 2016. Spying in Europe – The work of the SOE. Dorinda Balchin. [online] Available at: https://dorindabalchin.com/2016/01/19/spying-in-europe-the-work-ofthe- soe/ [accessed 15th October 2023]
15 In letters to Azeem Goldenberg, Noor expresses her desire to write and become an author. Curtis, Lara R. 2016. Writing Resistance and the Question of Gender: Charlotte Delbo, Noor Inayat Khan, and Germaine Tillion, PhD thesis, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 560. p97.
16 In memory of Eliae Plewman, Madeleine Damerment, and Yolande Beekman, also murdered at Dachau on 12th September 1944
