Noor Inayat Khan Transcript
In the heart of Bloomsbury lies the leafy and peaceful oasis of Gordon Square, today a magnet for workers who come to escape the roaring metropolis.
But it was here that a delicate and dreamy little girl would once come to play with her brother and disappear into a world of imagination where fairies would spring from behind trees, and where she felt safe and happy.
Two decades later that same young girl, a newly trained secret agent, would be dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France on a dangerous mission she knew may end her life.
Today we celebrate an exceptional woman whose faith and belief in the human spirit enabled her to display unimaginable courage. We remember Noor Inayat Khan.
As New Year dawned on a freezing and snow covered Moscow in 1914, baby Noor was born. Her mother Ora Ray was American and her Indian father Hazrat Inayat Khan was a Sufi preacher and talented musician.
He had been raised in Western India to a family descended from the legendary “Tiger of Mysore” Tipu Sultan, one of India's greatest warrior princes. Inayat Khan had left his homeland in 1910 with instructions to take Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism, to the west.
In America he toured the country with the Royal Musicians of Hindustan and in San Francisco met Ora Ray who was entranced by Inayat Khan. Neither family however approved and he set sail for Europe without her.
In Paris the group were engaged by the exotic dancer Mata Hari, who would later faced the firing squad, accused of spying for the Germans in WWI. But having been finally joined by Ora Ray, the two were married in London and soon moved with the group to Moscow, where Noor was born.
Inayat Khan loved the culture of Moscow, but it was a city simmering with political discontent and the family had to suddenly leave. As they did so, riots broke out and barricades blocked their path.
As crowds surged around their sledge Inayat Kahn swathed in golden robes and with his flowing beard, held baby Noor aloft and he made such an impression, that the hoard fell silent and let the family through.
They made their way to Paris, but with the outbreak of WWI in August the family moved the relative safety of London.