Noor Inyat Khan

Noor Inayat Khan
Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, circa 1943
Nickname(s)	Nora Baker Madeleine (SOE codename) Nurse (SOE callsign) Jeanne-Marie Renier (SOE alias)
Born	(1914-01-01)1 January 1914 Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	13 September 1944(1944-09-13) (aged 30) Dachau concentration camp, Bavaria, Nazi Germany
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Women's Auxiliary Air Force Special Operations Executive
Years of service	1940–1944
Rank	Assistant Section Officer
Unit	Cinema (SOE)
Battles/wars	Second World War
Awards	George Cross Mentioned in dispatches Croix de guerre 1939–1945

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, GC (1 January 1914 – 13 September 1944), aka Nora INAYAT-KHAN, was a British heroine of World War II renowned for her service in the Special Operations Executive.

She also went by the name Nora Baker and was a published author of Indian and American descent who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for her service in the SOE, the highest civilian decoration in the UK. As an SOE agent she became the first female wireless operator to be sent from Britain into occupied France to aid the French Resistance during World War II, and was Britain's first Muslim war heroine.

Inayat Khan, the eldest of four children, was born on 1 January 1914 in Moscow. Her siblings were Vilayat (1916–2004), Hidayat (1917–2016), and Khair-un-Nisa (1919–2011).

Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, came from a noble Indian Muslim family—his mother was a descendant of the uncle of Tipu Sultan, the 18th-century ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He lived in Europe as a musician and a teacher of Sufism. Her mother, Pirani Ameena Begum (born Ora Ray Baker), was an American from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who met Hazrat Inayat Khan during his travels in the United States. Ora Baker was the half-sister of American yogi and scholar Pierre Bernard, her guardian at the time she met Inayat (Hazrat is an honorific, translated as Saint). Vilayat later became head of the Sufi Order International.