As the curtain falls on 2023, I recognize that for many in the world, these may be perilous times, making us wonder if 2024 truly will be a happy new year.

Who can say how the stock market will perform? When a war that’s been raging will end? If a loved one who has been seriously ill will heal? What disruptions AI might unleash? Whether one will be able to hold on to one’s job?

This brings me to the story of Noor Inayat Khan. It is my new year’s gift to you, for Noor can show us how — by anchoring ourselves in purpose — we can stay pure in perilous times.

Noor’s family immigrated from India and, after stints in Russia and France, ultimately settled in Great Britain in the 1940s. The value of self-sacrifice took root and blossomed in her from a very early stage in her life. Her father died suddenly when she was thirteen, leaving her mother grief-stricken. As the eldest of four siblings, Noor sacrificed a lot of her own joys to take on the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings. As a teenager, Noor studied child psychology at the Sorbonne and music at the Paris Conservatory. During this period, her exposure to Christianity opened her up further to the value of self-sacrifice. And she found the same guidance in the Sufi faith she had drawn from her father — the striving to kill nafs, one’s ego. She wrote a book of 20 children’s stories drawn from the Buddhist tradition — stories that told of “people and animals moved to acts of sacrifice by the noble example of their fellow creatures.”

Here she was, growing into this “deeply sensitive, extraordinarily gifted” young girl, when World War II struck. What was a young woman to do in a time of war?

Noor, along with her brother Vilayat, felt a moral imperative to serve Britain. And yet, armed with their Sufi faith, they were deeply committed to non-violence. So they decided to volunteer for wartime roles where they would not be involved in killing anyone. You might expect that they would wish to be wartime nurses or munitions factory workers. But there was one other condition they wished to impose on themselves.

This second condition came from Noor’s deep devotion to self-sacrifice. They wished to serve in a way that would be of greatest life-saving value for Britain, where they could offer maximum sacrifice to the nation. So Vilayat pursued a role as a minesweeper — and Noor trained herself to be Britain’s first female radio operator to be deputed to an occupied area in France. British radio operators who worked behind enemy lines were typically discovered, apprehended, and killed by the enemy within six weeks.

The official report on her radio-operator training stated that she was “pretty scared of weapons” but that signaling and communications were “her subject.”

As Noor’s training was coming to an end, her training commander, Atkins, learned that Noor was showing signs of discomfort about her imminent assignment to France. So she arranged to meet with Noor, and told her, “You know that if you have any doubts, it is not too late to turn back… If you don’t feel you’re the type — if for any reason whatever you don’t want to go you only have to tell me now. I’ll arrange everything so that you have no embarrassment. You will be transferred to another branch of the service with no adverse mark on your file. We have every respect for the man or woman who admits frankly to not feeling up to it… For us there is only one crime: to go out there and let your comrades down.”

Noor replied that she was ready and had no concerns about her own self. But she did have a concern about her mother, who had been devastated about her son and daughter’s decision to serve in the war.

Normally, British authorities would inform the family if a radio operator was arrested by the enemy. Noor wished that in the event of her arrest, her mother should not have to suffer; so she asked that her mother continue to be told by the authorities that Noor was fine and well. Only if the British intelligence got incontrovertible evidence that Noor had been killed should her mother be informed that her daughter had died. That way, her mother would not go through unnecessary emotional pain, except when there was a clear and irreversible loss.

Noor left for France, served the Allied cause, and was caught by the Nazis within a few months. She was killed by them in captivity a few months later, in Dachau. That is when her mother received the news of her capture and death.

Noor was in love with humanity, in love with her faith, and in love with her mother. Ideally, she would have lived a peaceful and long life centered in her devotional pursuit and teaching of Sufism. The Second World War intruded on her plans. There were hard decisions to be made, with no perfect answers. She did not shy away from making the decisions that would define her life from there on, nor did she make those decisions in any casual or impulsive way. She thought hard and, anchored in her values, explored the nuances, resolved the conflicts, persuaded her stakeholders, and then marched forward with resolve. She could not help her mother escape the pain of her ultimate loss, but she did what she could to minimize this pain by not letting her mother be informed of her captivity. She must have died with a peaceful conscience, completely fused with her purpose, intentional in every choice she made, pure of heart, even as she was thrust into conditions she had never dreamt of encountering.

So yes, these may indeed be perilous times, and we may not yet know what 2024 holds in store for us. Some things will come and intrude on your plans, and at times, there will be hard decisions to make with no perfect answers. When you are faced with such moments, my new year’s wish for you is that you will think hard, anchor yourself in your values, explore the nuances, resolve the conflicts, persuade your stakeholders, and then march forward with resolve.

And if you ever feel disengaged or discouraged, come back here and peer into Noor’s eyes. Do you not feel grace and spirit emanating from her, touching you at your core? Her strength is your strength; her love, your love; her wisdom, your wisdom.

So my prayer for you is that you stay anchored in your purity within, in both moments of plenty and moments of peril. Then, surely, 2024 will be a very happy new year.

Warmly,
Hitendra

Note 1: I owe a big debt to my daughter Mrinalini for introducing me, years ago, to Noor. And to Noor’s cousin, Shaikh-al-Mashaik, a wonderful, joyful, luminous teacher of Sufi wisdom, for sharing insights on Noor as a teen and as a young woman.

Note 2: I’m sharing below two poems written by Noor’s mother, Ameena. The first poem was written when Noor was 13, and the second when she was 14. Celebrating her husband’s and her daughter’s virtues was one way for Noor’s mother to cope with the loss of her husband. (“Amma” means mother.)

Graduation Day
Noor-un-nisa, your Father’s pride,
Modes, gentle and qualified.
Graceful in manner, fair of face,
Worthiest daughter by Allah’s grace.
Deep in thoughts and wise in speech,
Little comrades in school, you teach.
Today, first prize do you receive,
In music, highest to achieve.
‘Tis He, who sent it from above,
To His child with His deepest love.
Amma
July 28^th, 1927
Age 13 years

Noorunnisa 
A bud from the stem of Divinity
With petals eager to unfold
To the fullness of God’s vast beauty,
A lovely Sufi rose foretold.
With a heart full of loving forgiveness
And mind from the highest abode,
An inspired soul of saintliness,
With talents lavishly bestowed.
Endowed with heavenly inheritance,
From a Father of rarest birth,
His arms surrounding you in guidance
Thro’ many happy years on earth.
14^th birthday, January 1^st 1928
Amma

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