Spy Princess Read Online Free PDF

soon the family were once again in dire financial straits.
    Inayat Khan left his wife and children behind and travelled to Geneva where some Sufi disciples helped him with generous donations. By now Hazrat Inayat Khan was an established murshid and everywhere he went, his mureeds helped him set up centres. The family struggled through the winter alone but early in 1921 Inayat Khan returned to Tremblaye and took them to Wissous, another small town to the south of Paris. The family enjoyed better days in Wissous. The house belonged to a naval officer and stood on the edge of the village overlooking fields. Inayat would meditate in the garden early in the morning while the children played around him. Later, he would play the veena and sing. At Wissous, Hazrat Inayat Khan held a summer camp for his close followers. In the evening the mureeds would gather in the large living room. The brothers played their instruments and there was an atmosphere of tranquillity.
    In the spring of 1922, one of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s devoted mureeds , a rich Dutch widow named Madame Egeling, offered to buy a house for the family. One day, as Inayat Khan and his disciples were walking in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, they decided to cross the river and climb the hill at Suresnes. Suddenly, a large house surrounded by trees caught Inayat Khan’s attention. ‘It must be here!’ he exclaimed. 1 The house, luckily, was for sale. Situated a few miles from the centre of Paris, near the Longchamps racecourse, it was perfect for the family. From the upper windows one could see the lights of the city and the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and on a clear day there was a view of Sacré Coeur and the Seine winding down towards the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
    Inayat Khan called the house Fazal Manzil (the House of Blessing), and as far as Noor was concerned it would live up to its name, because she spent many happy years there. The house was surrounded by a walled garden and trees, and Noor specially loved sitting with her brothers and sister on the flight of stairs outside the house and gazing at the city spreading out below. Like Inayat when he had been young, Vilayat and Hidayat were naturally playful and loved climbing the trees around the house. If the mureeds expressed surprise at how naughty the boys were, Inayat Khan would say, ‘I was worse,’ remembering how he used to run wild in the house in Baroda. 2
    The four children, their parents and their three uncles settled comfortably into the large house. In summer it would overflow with visitors as the Sufi summer school was held there for three months. Inayat Khan invited the elderly Madame Egeling to come and stay with them and she helped educate the children and looked after the house. She remained a faithful mureed till the end.
    Hidayat remembered on one occasion going to Paris with his father to buy yellow curtains for the living room. Inayat Khan would often buy an antique object that reminded him of the East: a lamp or a Moroccan rug. It was difficult for him to forget India and he filled the house with things that reminded him of the land of his birth. Though their mother was American, the children grew up very much in an Indian atmosphere. Noor would dress her brothers and sisters in Indian clothes and the four children would often perform short plays. She particularly enjoyed wearing a sari and dressing her brothers up in bright turbans. The children loved playing on the grounds of Fazal Manzil and the green in front of the house. At home the children spoke to each other in English. Since Inayat Khan and his brothers spoke to each other in Hindi, the children could follow some Hindi and Urdu as well.
    It was at Fazal Manzil that Inayat Khan started the practice of Universal Worship, a ceremony where all the religions of the world would be honoured. Inayat Khan always believed in the oneness of religions; as a child he had an equal fascination for both Hinduism and Islam and studied both. Now he