Icon of Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan
Gifted to the Abode

An Icon of Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, executed in the Mediæval Russian-Byzantine manner by Yasodhara Sandy Lillydahl, commissioned by Mumtaz Kammerer and presented to the Abode of the Message in honor of his father, Clarence W. Kammerer Sr. April 2009


Noor-un-nisa was born in Russia in 1914, the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan and his wife Ora Ray (Amina Begum). She was raised in a deeply spiritual family with her sister Khair-un-nisa (Claire) and her two brothers, Vilayat and Hidayat. As she matured, she became an accomplished musician and a writer of stories for children.
Noor, along with her mother, sister, and Vilayat, barely escaped the Nazi occupation of France, leaving for England on the last boat from Normandy.
Although they were pacifists, and could not participate in killing, Noor and Vilayat nevertheless volunteered for perilous duty during the war. Vilayat became an officer on a British Minesweeper, and Noor became an intelligence agent behind German lines in occupied France.
She was known by her code name, Madeleine, and as a clandestine radio operator, took tremendous risks, putting herself in deadly peril until she was  betrayed to the Gestapo, and captured.
Noor was imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, and finally executed and cremated at the concentration camp at Dachau. Her last word was: Liberté!
Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre. She is considered a Sufi saint of the Twentieth Century. It is interesting to note that in telling her story, historians pay more attention to her warrior ancestor Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore) who fought the British in India, than they do to her Father, Inayat Khan, who instilled in her the virtues of pacifism, courage, and faith that made her such an effective secret agent.
Noor has no official resting place. Her ashes are mingled with the numberless victims of the Nazis. There is a plaque at Dachau commemorating her heroism, and another affixed by the gate of her family home in Suresnes, a suburb of Paris. With the acquisition of this Icon, the Abode will become another site honoring the life and martyrdom of this extraordinary woman.

Noor’s life has been the subject of several books. Two biographies have been written: Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan (Madeleine) by Jean Overton Fuller, East-West Publications Fonds; 2nd edition (June 1, 1988). And more recently: Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu, Omega Publications, Inc.; 1st edition (August 1, 2007). Her story figures prominently in Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks, Free Press; 1st Touchstone Ed edition (September 12, 2000), and in A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War by William Stevenson, Macmillan, London (1976). Additionally she is referenced on many websites, as a Google search on her name will show

Traditional Symbolism in the Icon of Ste. Noor

Noor’s names are in the halo: gold for the diffused light of Noor, and fleurs de lys for her code name Madeleine because fleurs de lys are symbols of Mary Magdalene (Madeleine in French). The fleur de lys also symbolizes France, which was Noor’s home and the theater of her work.
The red outer robe indicates that Noor gave her life as a martyr in the service of her highest ideals.
The green inner robe and golden/orange trim are Chishti colors.
Green also represents the human heart—the outer frame is also green. In a rainbow, green is the meeting ground between the earthly (red/orange/yellow) and the heavenly (blue/violet) ends of the spectrum, as the heart is the meeting place of Heaven and Earth.
Interlocking chain embellishment on the outer robe is the silsila—the chain of initiation.
The ruby heart with highlights on either side represents the Sufi symbol of the winged heart.