Pirani Ameena Begum ( Hindustani: / ; born Ora Ray Baker; 8 May 1892 – 1 May 1949) was a writer and poet who was the wife of

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

Master

Inayat Khan Inayat Khan Rehmat Khan (; 5 July 1882 – 5 February 1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. At the urging of his students ...

and the mother of their four children: World War II SOE agent Noor-un-Nisa (1914–1944), Vilayat (1916–2004), Hidayat (1917–2016) and Khair-un-Nisa (Claire) (1919–2011).

Life

Baker first met

in New York in 1911 when her half-brother and guardian, Pierre Bernard, engaged the master musician and mystic to teach his ward Indian music. However, he forbade the marriage and Khan sailed for London. Baker found his Indian home address among Bernard's papers when cleaning his desk; the letter was forwarded and she sailed for England alone. They married in 1912 or 1913 in London, at which point she took the name "Ameena Begum". After living in London and then Paris, they traveled to Moscow, where she gave birth to Noor (January 1, 1914) the new family returned to Paris in July. World War I started in August and they left for England where they remained for the duration of the war. She left a collection of 101 poems, "A Rosary of one hundred and one beads". Some poems were lost during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, but 54 have been preserved and were published in 1998. She has sometimes been reported to be the cousin of

Mary Baker Eddy Mary Baker Eddy (née Baker; July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author, who in 1879 founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, the ''Mother Church'' of the Christian Science movement. She also founded ''The C ...

, however this does not seem to be the case. Hidayat Inayat Khan wrote: "In 1926, Hazrat Inayat Khan gave my Mother an exceptional initiation as ' Pirani', which was only to be given to her. That special initiation was not to be given to any one else in the Sufi Movement, either in the present or in the future". Hazrat Inayat Khan said in his autobiography that without Ameena Begum's help he would never have been able to bring his Sufi Message to the Western world.

Articles and poetry

* * * * Collection of poems. * *

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

bbc.co.uk/timewatch "Noor Inayat Khan: Life of a Spy Princess"
bbc.co.uk; accessed 24 September 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Begum, Ameena 1892 births 1949 deaths American Sufis American Universalists Sufi poets Ināyati Sufis 20th-century American poets American emigrants to England American emigrants to France American women poets 20th-century American women writers