25. A Remarkable World War II Heroine
Princess Noor Inayat Khan, born in Moscow in 1914 into an unusual family, was one of the most remarkable women of World War II. Her father Inayat Khan was a Sufi Master and Muslim noble descended from the royal family of eighteenth-century Indian monarch Tipu Sultan. He earned his living as a musician and teacher of Sufism. Noor’s mother, Pirani Ameena Begum, was born Ora Ray Baker, an American from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The couple met in New York City and fell in love.
When her guardian forbade her from seeing Inayat, Noor’s mother sailed to London and married him there. When she was still an infant, Noor’s parents left Moscow for London, where they lived during WWI. After the war, they relocated to France. As a child, Noor was described as sensitive, shy, quiet, and dreamy. There was no hint that she would someday join the Special Operations Executive (SOE) – a secret organization tasked by Winston Churchill with “setting Europe ablaze!” – or secretly infiltrate into German-occupied on a clandestine mission against the Nazis.