Lady Evelyn Cobbold (''née'' Murray; 17 July 1867 – 25 January 1963), also known as Zainab Cobbold, was a Scottish diarist, traveller and noblewoman who was known for her

conversion Conversion or convert may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''The Convert'', a 2023 film produced by Jump Film & Television and Brouhaha Entertainment * "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman'' * ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

in 1915.

Biography

Born in Edinburgh in 1867, she was the eldest daughter of Charles Adolphus Murray, 7th

Earl of Dunmore Earl of Dunmore is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. The title Earl of Dunmore was created in 1686 for Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore, Lord Charles Murray, son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl. The title passed down through genera ...

and Lady Gertrude Coke, daughter of the Second Earl of Leicester.Facey, William (2008)
"Mayfair to Makkah"
, ''

Saudi Aramco World ''Aramco World'' (formerly ''Saudi Aramco World'') is a bi-monthly magazine published by Aramco Services Company, a US-based subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The first issue of the magazine a ...

'', Vol. 59, No. 5, pages 18–23. She married John Dupuis Cobbold in

All Saints' Church All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to: Albania * All Saints' Church, Himarë Australia * All Saints Church, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory * All Saints Anglican Church, Brisbane, Queensland *All ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

on 23 April 1891. Following a party in May 1891, at the Cobbold family home Holywells,

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

, they settled there. Here the couple had three children between 1893 and 1900: Winifred Evelyn (1892–1965), Ivan Cobbold (1897–1944), and Pamela Cobbold (1900–1932). However, in 1922 she separated from her husband. Subsequently she lived in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and on the Glencarron Estate.

Childhood

Cobbold spent much of her childhood in

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

and

in the company of

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

nannies. She considered herself a Muslim from a young age despite not officially professing her faith until she met the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

. She became a Mayfair socialite. She spent her childhood winters in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

where her fascination with Islam developed.

Conversion to Islam

Lady Evelyn embarked on a journey through the

Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the northeastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert (Egypt), Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval m ...

in 1911 with her American friend, Frances Gordon Alexander, in 1911. They published a joint account of the journey ''Wayfarers in the Libyan Desert'' in 1912. This led her to develop a greater interest in Islam. She confirmed her conversion to Islam by 1915, taking the Arabic name Zainab. She remarked that she considered Islam the religion "most calculated to solve the world's many perplexing problems, and to bring to humanity peace and happiness". Link is to full text of US version.

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Following the death of her former husband in 1929, Lady Evelyn started to plan her pilgrimage, or

Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...

, to

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

. She contacted Hafiz Wahba, ambassador for the

Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd (, '), initially the Kingdom of Hejaz and Sultanate of Nejd (Arabic: , '), was a dual monarchy ruled by Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) following the Saudi conquest of Hejaz by the Sultanate of Nejd in 1925. It was the four ...

to the United Kingdom, who in turn sent a letter to King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. Evelyn achieved celebrity status in 1933 at the age of 65, when she became the first Muslim woman born in the United Kingdom to perform the

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...

. In 1934, a personal account of her trip was published with the title ''Pilgrimage to Mecca''. Republished 2009 There is an excerpt from her work in

Michael Wolfe Michael B. Wolfe (born April 3, 1945) is an American poet, author, and the President and Co-Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation. A secular American born in Cincinnati, Ohio to a Christian mother and a Jewish father, Wolfe converte ...

's book '' One Thousand Roads to Mecca''. She visited

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

with a friend and went to see the

who asked her if she was

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. Although she had never thought about Islam for years she replied by saying she was Muslim. After that she decided to read up more about Islam and eventually converted. In 1933, she travelled to perform the Hajj for the first time, and because there were Europeans who visited

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

before her and who were not Muslim penetrated into Mecca and when returning to Europe, they wrote about their daring adventure of performing the Hajj as a non-Muslim. Because of this there were restrictions in place for Europeans, but Lady Evelyn, who adopted the name Zainab, was granted permission to perform the Hajj.

Diary

This is her description in her diary of the first time she saw the Kabah and

tawaf The Kaaba (), also spelled Kaba, Kabah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaba al-Musharrafa (), is a stone building at the center of Islam's most important mosque and Holiest sites in Islam, holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Sa ...

: "We walk on the smooth marble towards the Holy of Holies, the House of Allah, the great black cube rising in simple majesty, the goal for which millions have forfeited their lives and yet more millions have found heaven in beholding it … the 'Tawaf' is a symbol, to use the words of the poet, of a lover making a circuit round the house of his beloved, completely surrendering himself and sacrificing all his interests for the sake of the Beloved. It is in that spirit of self-surrender that the pilgrim makes the 'Tawaf'". Her book ''Pilgrimage to Mecca'' in 1934 is the first Hajj account by a Scottish Woman and her diary also is the oldest record of a trip during the Hajj, when she went by car from Mina to Arafat. She travelled widely all her life and also wrote another book, ''Kenya: Land of Illusion''. She spoke and wrote

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

fluently.

Writing

"Islam," Evelyn later wrote, "is the religion of common sense." Lady Evelyn's story about her life, her conversion and her pilgrimage to Mecca are all recorded in her diaries which have recently been republished. "She was a very lively, eccentric Anglo-Scot Moslem, who loved doing things and loved people as well," Major Philip Hope-Cobbold, her great-grandson said about her.

Death

Lady Evelyn died in 1963 in

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

and was buried, as she stipulated, on a remote hillside on her Glencarron estate in

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to th ...

. There was no Muslim in Scotland to perform her

janazah Islamic funerals () follow fairly specific rites, though they are subject to regional interpretation and variation in custom. In all cases, however, sharia (Islamic religious law) calls for burial of the body as soon as possible. The deceased is ...

so they contacted

Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking The Shah Jahan Mosque (also known as ''Woking Mosque'') on Oriental Road, Woking, England, is the first purpose-built mosque in the United Kingdom. Built in 1889, it is located southwest of London. It is a Grade I listed building. The Mosque ...

and the Imam drove up in the snow to perform her ''janazah''. She had stipulated she wanted to be buried on a hill on her estate facing

with the following words on her gravestone: ''Allahu nur-us-samawati wal ard'' ("Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth"). In 2022 her grave was visited by a party of pilgrims from the Convert Islam Foundation, a British organisation for converts to Islam, who walked the round trip up Gleann Fhiodhaig from

Glen Carron River Carron (, ) is a west coast river in Wester Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland. The river rises in Ledgowan Forest. It gathers its head-streams through Carron Bog, then enters Loch Scaven and flows out from there, passing Loch Dùghaill a ...

. The 2019 novel ''Bird Summons'' by

Leila Aboulela Leila Fuad Aboulela (Arabic:ليلى فؤاد ابوالعلا; born 1964) is a fiction writer, essayist, and playwright of Sudanese origin based in Aberdeen, Scotland. She grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and moved to Scotland in 1990 where she be ...

( W&N, ) describes a pilgrimage by three Muslim women in search of Cobbold's grave.