Noorunissa Inayat-Khan
In memory of Noorunissa Inayat-Khan and her courageous acts in WWII. Noor served in the British Air Force resistance group in England and in France. For Noor's service she has been awarded posthumously a British Mention in Dispatches, The French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star, and the King George Cross Britain's Highest Award for Gallantry. Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust.
Listen to Codename: Madeleine, BBC Radio Documentary
Below is a letter written by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan to the Producers of "Codename: Madeleine". Pir Zia forwarded this letter to the Sufi Message Headquarters the Netheralnds.
From: Zia Inayat-Khan
Sent: 07 January 2015 20:46
To the Producers of “Codename: Madeleine”
Ms. Bari and Mr. Shepherd:
I listened with interest today to your account of the life of my aunt Noorunnisa Inayat Khan. I found the program thoughtfully and compellingly produced on the whole but was taken aback by two assertions that lack justification.
Referring to the fact that Noor was in possession of her notebook when she was arrested, the narrator and an interviewee fault her with “a devastating blunder that cost lives.” At the end of the program the narrator says, “her mistakes were fatal for others.” But in Shrabani Basu’s excellent biography of Noor, she explains that Noor’s treatment of her notebook was not accidental but was instead a consistent and conscientious application of what she had understood from her training (Spy Princess, 2006, pp. 149-150). Basu rightly concludes, “Noor’s courage and performance were exemplary and except for misunderstanding her instructions about carefully filing her stories (instructions which were in any event not at all clear), there would have been nothing to fault her with.”
The second unsupported claim in the program is that Noor was subjected to rape before her execution at Dachau. Ms. Basu considered this possibility but came to the conclusion that there is no evidence to support it (pp. 179-180).
Sincerely,
Zia Inayat-Khan
