She Who Dared |Brave Women Through History | Noor Inayat Khan

Noor Inayat Khan was the first female Muslim British wireless operator sent into France in WWII to aid the French Resistance.

She was born in Moscow in 1914. Her father, Inayat Kahn, traveled as a musician and a teacher of Sufism. Her American mother was a writer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Pirani Ameena Begum. She met Noor’s father, Inayat Khan, during his travels in the United States as a musician and teacher of Sufism.

The family moved to London, then France. Noor studied child psychology and music. She began writing poetry and stories for children. She looked forward to a promising future in the French literary world when Germany’s occupation of France forced the family to flee to England. 

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) recruited Noor Inayat Khan to train as a secret agent in England. Even during training, she continued to write stories. In 1943, a plane secretly transported Noor to occupied France, where she worked with the French Resistance as a radio operator. Radio operators were prime targets for the Gestapo, who used signal triangulation to locate them. Despite the risks, Noor continued her work even after the Germans compromised her network. She transmitted critical intelligence to London under the code name Madeleine to aid in preparations for D-Day.

Betrayed by the sister of a colleague in the French Resistance, the Gestapo arrested Noor in October 1943. After enduring months of imprisonment, torture, and refusing to reveal any information, the Germans moved Noor to Dachau and executed her on September 13, 1944. Witnesses reported that an SS officer shot her in the back of the head. Just before he pulled the trigger, she shouted, “Liberté.”

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