Muslim Women’s History Month: Spotlight on Noor Inayat Khan

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As a woman, I welcome the month of March – Women’s History Month – each year as an opportunity to pay tribute to women who have made significant contributions to our world. As a Muslim woman, I also look forward to this month as a time to recognize and celebrate the contributions Muslim women have made to the sciences, literature, honorable struggles such as the French Resistance, and so much more. During a time when women in Islam are viewed as dependent, covered up, and oppressed, I look forward to the narratives of strong, independent, and intelligent Muslim women of the past as a much-needed boost to the generally negative and (incorrectly) chauvinistic paintbrush that Islam has been painted with over the last few centuries. This month I will write a series of posts about several little-known Muslim women from whom I personally am honored to learn, and who can demonstrate what Islam really offers to women in terms of freedom, creativity, and authority.
My first historical profile is someone from the recent past. Noor Inayat Khan (1914 – 1944) was an Indian Muslim descended from Tipu Sultan, but more importantly the first female radio operator sent from Britain into occupied France to aid the French Resistance. Interested in music, poetry and writing from a young age, Noor decided to set aside her pacifist Sufi upbringing and participate in the war in order to help change Western perceptions about Indians and Muslims. According to Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: The Story of Indians in Britain 1700-1947, she once said: “I wish some Indians would win high military distinction in this war. If one or two could do something in the Allied service which was very brave and which everybody admired it would help to make a bridge between the English people and the Indians.”
Noor joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and trained at various times as an aircraft woman, wireless operator, and nurse. Her command of the French language and a shortage of agents at the time led to assignment in Nazi-occupied France in June 1943 under the code name Madeline. Despite the subsequent arrest of all her fellow agents, Noor refused to return to Britain, moving instead from place to place to maintain the last link between Britain and Paris. According to the London Gazette, “She refused to abandon what had become the most important and dangerous post in France and did excellent work” (April 5, 1949).
In October 1943 Noor was betrayed by a fellow agent and arrested by the Germans. She tried to escape several times during her imprisonment, leading to solitary confinement as a “Nacht und Nebel” (condemned to “Disappearance without Trace”) prisoner. For most of her ten-month confinement she was handcuffed and chained due to her designation as a dangerous prisoner and flight risk. She was finally executed on September 13, 1944, at the age of 30, along with three other female prisoners.
Noor Inayat Khan’s daring sacrifice as a loyal agent of the French Resistance captured the hearts and minds of the British who she wanted to impress. She received the coveted British George Cross award and the French Croix de Geurre gold star posthumously, as well as several other honors. A number of television series, articles and papers have been written about her over the last few decades, including several biographies and a 2012 Hollywood option for Spy Princess.
For me, Noor’s amazing story isn’t just a piece of Islamic/British history, although many would like to take it as such. Her tale is in fact the embodiment of courage and fortitude, an outstanding example for men and women who came after her. She gave up her quiet literary life, not for the sake of adventure but in response to a sincere calling to show the world what Muslims are made of. Her example shines in every man and woman of combat who fights for freedom and justice and proves that a true Muslim’s loyalty lies with his or her nation. While her life as a spy heroine was indeed noteworthy, much of her character can be gleaned not only from French Resistance records, but from the pages of her children’s novels and piano and harp compositions. This March, I salute the sacrifices made by Noor and hope that all who read about her will have a better understanding of what Muslim women are made of.

0 thoughts on “Muslim Women’s History Month: Spotlight on Noor Inayat Khan

  1. Khan was certainly a hero in WW 2,
    Here is my list co current heroes:
    1. Malala Yousafzai – 15 year of girl from Pakistan who fought for the right of woman to attend shoool and almost with with he life. She survived and assassinate attempt and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
    2.Fawzia Koofi – A candidate for the presidency of Afghanistan. This would have been unthinkable under Taliban rule prior to 911. She is a brave very brave soul
    Woman have much work to do in the Muslim world.

  2. In honor of International Women’s Day, all I can say is without Muslim women, there would be no Islam. What better way to celebrate than to hold hands with brother sammy and recognize women as heroes. The destruction of patriarchy is a long, long road but this is a start.

  3. Courage, dedication and sacrifice are the hallmark of women whether they spend their lives oppressed and unknown or are at the right time and the right place to be recognised. More so Muslim women who have had to work harder to contribute to making this world a better place and present a civilised image of Islam.

  4. One of South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon, Professor Fatima Meer (August 12, 1928 – March 12, 2010), an African National Congress (ANC) leader and biographer of Nelson Mandela, Higher Than Hope, and a former professor at the University of Natal – died on Friday at a hospital in Durban. South African president Jacob Zuma paid rich tribute to her in his official condolence message: “Fatima Meer dedicated all her life to the struggle for freedom and equality among South Africans and worked tirelessly to improve relations between Indians and Africans in Durban.
    In addition to be a freedom-fighter, a political prisoner along with her lawyer husband Ismail – Fatima Meer authored more than 40 books and was involved in country’s broadcasting and film industry. She played a major role in making of the film on Mahatma Gandhi, The Making of a Mahatma (watch a trailer at the end of this post).
    Fatima Meer was born into a liberal Muslim family of 9 in Durban, where all religions were respected. She boycotted Salman Rushdie’s abortive tour to South africa in 1998 claiming he was blasphemer. She paid a visit to Islamic Republic of Iran in 1984 and praised the Islamic Revolution as the greatest Islamic event of the century.
    She gave an interview to Nelson Mandela Foundation on July 13, 2008, in which she stated: “We have not got a leadership who will fight poverty, we have a very corrupt leadership – that’s our tragedy. And the leadership doesn’t have the courage to recognize its own weaknesses; it always pushes things away from itself and puts blame elsewhere.”
    “The problem we have is with United States. It is interested in acquiring the oil resources which are in the hands of Muslims. So Middle East is in the mess it’s because, until the US gets control of that oil resources, it’s not going to solve the Middle East problem (by forcing the Zionist entity to act like civilized people). and in the wake of that, we have the intolerance of Muslims. The USA’s enemies were communists before; today the enemies are Muslims.”
    “People have said Barack Obama is going to change things, but he will not have the power to change things. He will be manipulated the way the moneyed class wants things to be in America and the rest of the world.”
    “Quite diplomacy (non-violence), didn’t succeed, that was what the US pursued in South Africa. The USA did not support us, in fact it opposed the liberation (resistance) movement. I recall, I was in the States when Nelson was about to go there and one morning I was invited to address the Senators. At the end of my official address to them, one Senator requested that I stay behind and talk to him, which I did, and what did he want to talk to me about? He wanted to know if I would be seeing Mandela when he came or before he started his trip to the States. I said I did not know which was the truth. He said if you do see him, warn him that he is not to mention the words “Arafat” or “Gaddafi”. If he does, he will be finished; he will have no sympathy in this country. Imagine it, hey?”
    http://rehmat1.com/2010/03/16/remembering-fatima-meer/

    • Rahmat,
      I have read you material. You are an anti Semitic scumbag. You come here in hope of finding some naive soul would would believe your crap. There are this who are trying to preserve the god side of Islam, your hatred soils on it.
      Just to address your silly response., I am sure yo do recognized that China is as hungry for oil as the US.
      And you wrote about Zionists acting civilized. Well goes what, Israel is the most civilized country in the Middle East. Look at the past civil war in Lebanon were 100,000 ever butchered. Currently the the Syrian civil war rages on and the butchering continues. And you are crying about Israel
      Now crawl back into the sewer you came out of

      • @sammy, if you expect me to respond to you in your filthy language – you’re wrong. That would make me a Zionist Jew too!
        Now, let us see what an Israeli-born Gilad Atzmon has to say about your “most civilized country”.
        “It is an obvious fact that the Israelis do not belong to the region. The Jewish claim for Zion i.e. Palestine is beyond pathetic. It is in fact as ridiculous as a bunch of Italian settlers invading London’s Piccadilly Circus claiming their right to return to a land once occupied by their Roman forefathers. Obviously Italians would not get away with it, Zionists, on the other hand, have managed to fool the nations for more than a while.”
        http://rehmat1.com/2010/06/18/palestine-the-third-option/

        • Oh, you have not heard the last of me, you swine. I life how you cherry pick a Jew who hate who he is and pays you little game of anti Semitism. I mean time, the Syrians continue their blood letting. I am sure you would figure rout who the Jews are to blame for that.
          You and your filth have to be exposed. for what it is.
          God knows why the Tikunistas would allow anti Semitic filth on here.
          Now go back to your sewer.

  5. If the author of this blog, Saadia Faruqi, had courage, she would jump in and condemn Rahmat and his blog. This is the time she should put words to her ideals and values.

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