A Sufi woman's courage.

Byline: Rafia Zakaria

IN the French town of Suresnes, located across the Seine River from Paris, is a street named after Noor Inayat Khan. The street also features a small elementary school named after the same woman. Few people in the town know who the woman was, although the schoolchildren are given some perfunctory bits of information about her.

The French should know who Noor Inayat Khan was, and so should Pakistanis and the rest of the world. As Arthur J. Magida writes in his book Code Name Madeleine: A Sufi Spy in Nazi-Occupied Paris, this daughter of Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan was brave enough to work as a spy for the British. Working as a radio operator, Noor sent messages back to London from the various cells of resistance fighters located in France. Her work allowed the British to coordinate with the cells so they could better target their attacks against the German Nazis.

Noor Inayat Khan had not been raised to undertake this sort of mission. The first-born daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan, she was raised in an atmosphere that elevated harmony, peace and oneness of humanity. She had studied all the religious texts and also had taught classes on Sufism before the war began. She had been a student at the Sorbonne, travelling to Paris everyday from her home in Suresnes. Home was a stately brick house located halfway up a mountain that towers over the town. In Fazal Manzil, she lived with her mother Ora, an American who had married Hazrat Inayat Khan, her sister Claire and her brothers Vilayat and Hidayat.

Inayat Khan held classes for his Sufi students at Fazal Manzil. In the summers, an entire building was rented to provide a place to live for all the people who poured into the little town. Noor spent time discussing philosophical and mystical topics with her father and brothers, even performing housekeeping functions for the large household because her mother Ora spent most of her time alone and in bed.

Her story is yet another example of a heroic Muslim woman who has been largely erased from history.

And then it all fell apart. First, Hazrat Inayat Ali Khan left for a trip to India, which he had not visited for decades since he had first left for the West. Then, a few years later, war broke out. When Hitler first began his march of domination across Europe, few in France believed that he would ever get to France. Of course, this was not correct. War had broken out in 1939, and many began to fear that the Germans would likely occupy the...