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years.
    In 1917 the family moved into a large house in 1 Gordon Square financed by the Sufis. Over the years two more children were born to Inayat Khan and Amina Begum: Hidayat, a boy, and Khair-un-nisa, a girl. Inayat called his second daughter Mamuli (mother’s child). To Noor, Vilayat was bhaijaan , Hidayat was bhaiyajaan , and Khair was Mamuli or Mams. Noor, little more than a toddler herself, mothered them all.
    The family spent happier times in Gordon Square. Though money was still scarce, the house was buzzing with activity and the four children kept Amina Begum’s hands full. Noor was a delicate child, dreamy and sensitive. When she heard that children in Russia had nothing to eat she took it to heart, although she was only four. She began demanding chocolates from the adults, and as soon as she got one she would leave the room. Later her parents found she had a big box full of chocolates in her room, which she was collecting for the Russian children.
    Noor would play with Vilayat in the Square and believed that she had seen fairies there. She even told her family that she talked to the little creatures who lived in the flowers and bushes. They did not question her, but the children in the neighbourhood did. They laughed at Noor’s tales of fairies and it upset her so much that she stopped seeing fairies after that. Even when Noor grew up she loved fairies and would often sketch them in cards and write about them in stories.
    The children lived in a somewhat unreal world. The house was full of visiting Sufis and they were often left to themselves. One day a child came and told Noor and Vilayat that Santa Claus did not exist. This upset both children and they rushed to their father and asked him for the truth. Inayat told them: ‘When something exists in the imagination of anybody, you can be sure there is a plane on which it has real existence.’ 11 All of which probably meant nothing to the two children, but both felt they had been told something very profound and left feeling quite elated.
    As the guns of war were silenced in Europe, the family settled in to life in London. But the Home Office was still suspicious of Inayat Khan. The fact that Inayat Khan had met Mahatma Gandhi and nationalist leaders like Sarojini Naidu made them keep him under supervision. Nationalism was growing in the overseas Indian community at this time as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre 12 in Amritsar had had a strong impact on all Indians. Inayat Khan’s friend, the poet Rabindranath Tagore, had returned his knighthood in protest.
    Some Muslim friends of Inayat Khan invited him to preside over the Anjuman Islam, a committee to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together. But a member of the society sent out letters to collect money for a charity for Muslim orphans without registering the society and the Anjuman Islam became the subject of a police investigation. It was eventually cleared of shady dealings but the ill-feelings remained. Inayat Khan’s house and movements were watched.
    A faithful mureed in Southampton, Miss Dowland, advised him to leave England. She sent him money to tide over the financial crisis. Another mureed in South Africa also sent them money to relocate and a third devotee offered them his empty summer house in Tremblaye, a village in France.
    In the spring of 1920, the family of Inayat Khan prepared to move once again. Vilayat was only four at the time. All he remembered was the small boat and how everyone was seasick. 13 Noor was just six, clinging to her mother and her younger brothers and sister as the family crossed the Channel again. Inayat held his veena and looked out at the sea. The war in Europe was over. He wondered what the future would hold for his young family.

TWO
Fazal Manzil
    N oor and her family soon settled into their house in the small village of Tremblaye, north of Paris. Vilayat remembered it as a damp place with no heating and no food. Tremblaye was hardly a place to give Indian concerts and