{{Short description|British Muslim aristocrat}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person |name = Lady Evelyn Cobbold |birth_date = 17 July 1867 |birth_name = Lady Evelyn Murray |birth_place = Edinburgh, Scotland |death_date = {{Death date and age|25 January 1963|17 July 1867}}<ref name="probate">''England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995''</ref> |death_place = Inverness, Scotland |known_for = First Muslim woman born in Britain to perform the ''Hajj'' pilgrimage |spouse = {{marriage|John Dupuis Cobbold|1891|1922}} |children = 3 |parents = Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore<br />Lady Gertrude Coke }}
'''Lady Evelyn Cobbold''' (''née'' '''Murray'''; 17 July 1867<ref>{{cite ODNB |title=Cobbold [née Murray], Lady Evelyn |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/95642 |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/95642 |access-date=14 December 2020}}</ref> – 25 January 1963), also known as '''Zainab Cobbold''', was a Scottish diarist, traveller and noblewoman who was known for her conversion to Islam in 1915.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-48069763|title = The British Victorians who became Muslims|work = BBC News|date = 18 May 2019}}</ref>
==Biography== Born in Edinburgh in 1867,<ref>William Facey, Miranda Taylor, Introduction to ''Pilgrimage to Mecca'', p 2. {{ISBN|9780955889431}}</ref><ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain"/> she was the eldest daughter of Charles Adolphus Murray,<ref>William Facey, Miranda Taylor, Introduction to ''Pilgrimage to Mecca'', p 3. {{ISBN|9780955889431}}</ref> 7th Earl of Dunmore and Lady Gertrude Coke, daughter of the Second Earl of Leicester.<ref name="aramco">Facey, William (2008). [http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200805/mayfair.to.makkah.htm "Mayfair to Makkah"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610012145/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200805/mayfair.to.makkah.htm |date=10 June 2011 }}, ''Saudi Aramco World'', Vol. 59, No. 5, pages 18–23. <!--accessed October 22, 2008--></ref> She married John Dupuis Cobbold in All Saints' Church Cairo, Egypt on 23 April 1891.<ref name="SA">{{cite web |title=Cobbold, John Dupuis |url=https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=1394 |website=suffolkartists.co.uk |publisher=Suffolk Artists |access-date=14 September 2019}}</ref> Following a party in May 1891, at the Cobbold family home Holywells, Ipswich, they settled there. Here the couple had three children between 1893 and 1900: Winifred Evelyn (1892–1965),<ref name="ft Winifred Evelyn COBBOLD">{{cite web |title=#450, Winifred Evelyn COBBOLD|website=Family Tree|publisher=The Cobbold Family History Trust |url=https://family-tree.cobboldfht.com/people/view/450|access-date=16 June 2022}}</ref> Ivan Cobbold (1897–1944),<ref name="ft Col. John Murray (Ivan) COBBOLD">{{cite web |title=#448, John Murray (Ivan) COBBOLD|website=Family Tree|publisher=The Cobbold Family History Trust |last=Cobbold|first=Anthony|url=https://family-tree.cobboldfht.com/people/view/448|year=2020}}</ref> and Pamela Cobbold (1900–1932).<ref name="ft Pamela COBBOLD">{{cite web |title=#452, Pamela COBBOLD|website=Family Tree|publisher=The Cobbold Family History Trust |last=Dismore|first=Jane |url=https://family-tree.cobboldfht.com/people/view/452|date=December 2009|via=The Dorset Magazine}}</ref> However, in 1922<ref name="Russell">{{cite web |last1=Russell |first1=Steven |title=Mayfair to Mecca: plucky Lady Evelyn |url=https://www.eadt.co.uk/ea-life/mayfair-to-mecca-plucky-lady-evelyn-1-194227 |website=East Anglian Daily Times |date=8 May 2009 |access-date=14 September 2019 |language=en }}{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> she separated from her husband. Subsequently she lived in London and on the Glencarron Estate.<ref name="ft Cobbold">{{cite web |title=#308, Evelyn MURRAY|website=Family Tree|publisher=The Cobbold Family History Trust |last=Cobbold|first=Anthony|url=https://family-tree.cobboldfht.com/people/view/308|year=2006}}</ref>
===Childhood=== Cobbold spent much of her childhood in Algiers and Cairo in the company of Muslim nannies.<ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain" /> She considered herself a Muslim from a young age despite not officially professing her faith until she met the Pope.<ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain" /> She became a Mayfair socialite. She spent her childhood winters in North Africa where her fascination with Islam developed.
===Conversion to Islam=== Lady Evelyn embarked on a journey through the Libyan Desert 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.<ref name="Mackenzie Western Women-">{{cite web |last1=MacKenzie |first1=Julian |title=Western Women in the Islamic World {{!}} Shapero Rare Books Blog |url=https://shapero.com/blog/bookshop-blog/western-women-in-the-islamic-world/ |website=shapero.com |date=22 February 2023 |publisher=Shapero Rare Books |access-date=19 April 2023}}</ref> 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".<ref name="Sotheran's">{{cite book|last1=Cobbold|first1=Lady Evelyn Murray|first2=Frances Gordon|last2=Alexander|title=Wayfarers in the Libyan Desert|publisher=Arthur L Humphreys|location=London|date=1 January 1912|url=https://archive.org/details/wayfarersinlibya00alex|quote= Book prepared jointly by Lady Evelyn Cobbold and Frances Gordon Alexander. The American edition is issued under Mrs. Alexander's name, the English under Lady Evely Cobbold's, the text differing slightly}} Link is to full text of US version.</ref>
==Pilgrimage to Mecca== Following the death of her former husband in 1929, Lady Evelyn started to plan her pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca. She contacted Hafiz Wahba, ambassador for the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd 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 to Mecca.<ref name="aramco" /><ref>William Facey, Miranda Taylor, Introduction to 2009 edition of 'Pilgrimage to Mecca', p 32. {{ISBN|9780955889431}}</ref><ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain">{{cite web | url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/05/victorian-muslims-britain-160514100711278.html | title=The Victorian Muslims of Britain | publisher=Al Jazeera | date=June 15, 2016 | access-date=March 2, 2018 | author=O'Shea, Josef}}</ref> In 1934, a personal account of her trip was published with the title ''Pilgrimage to Mecca''.<ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain"/><ref name=pilgrim>{{Cite book|title=Pilgrimage to Mecca|last=Cobbold|first=Lady Evelyn|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.172757/page/n79/mode/2up|publisher=John Murray, Albemarle Street|location=London W|year=1934|isbn=978-0955889431}} Republished 2009</ref> There is an excerpt from her work in Michael Wolfe's book ''One Thousand Roads to Mecca''.
She visited Italy with a friend and went to see the Pope who asked her if she was Catholic. 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.<ref name=pilgrim/>{{rp|xiv}}<ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain"/>
In 1933, she travelled to perform the Hajj for the first time, and because there were Europeans who visited Saudi Arabia 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:
:"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 fluently.<ref name="WG_1933">{{cite news |title=ENGLISH WOMAN MAKES HISTORY |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000407/19330414/119/0013 |access-date=14 April 2023 |work=Western Gazette |date=14 April 1933 |quote=She knows by heart many passages of the Koran and speaks fluent Arabic, which she can both read and write}}</ref>
===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.{{when|date=March 2018}}
"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 and was buried, as she stipulated, on a remote hillside on her Glencarron estate in Wester Ross. There was no Muslim in Scotland to perform her ''janazah'' so they contacted Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking 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 Mecca with the following words on her gravestone: ''Allahu nur-us-samawati wal ard'' ("Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth").<ref name="Victorian Muslims of Britain"/>
In 2022 her grave was visited by a party of pilgrims from the Convert Islam Foundation, a British organisation for converts to Islam,<ref>{{cite web |title=Home page |url=https://www.convertmuslimfoundation.org.uk/ |website= |publisher=Convert Muslim Foundation |access-date=15 June 2022 |language=en}}</ref> who walked the {{convert|20|km|adj=on}} round trip up Gleann Fhiodhaig from Glen Carron.<ref>{{cite news |title=Lady Evelyn Cobbold - why are Muslim pilgrims visiting her Scottish grave?|first=Auryn|last=Cox |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-61759796 |access-date=15 June 2022 |work=BBC News |date=15 June 2022}}</ref> The 2019 novel ''Bird Summons'' by Leila Aboulela (W&N, {{ISBN|978-1474600125}}) describes a pilgrimage by three Muslim women in search of Cobbold's grave.<ref name="cosslett">{{cite news |last1=Cosslett |first1=Rhiannon Lucy |author-link=Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett |title=Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela review – lyrical examination of identity |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/12/bird-summons-leila-aboulela-review |access-date=15 June 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=12 April 2019 |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== *Clive Hodges: ''Cobbold & Kin: Life Stories from an East Anglian Family'' (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2014) {{ISBN|9781843839545}}
{{Cobbold family tree|state=collapsed}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cobbold, Evelyn}} Category:1867 births Category:1963 deaths Category:Nobility from Edinburgh Category:19th-century Scottish nobility Category:20th-century Muslims Category:20th-century British explorers Category:20th-century Scottish diarists Category:20th-century Scottish women writers Category:Writers from Edinburgh Category:Daughters of Scottish earls Category:Converts to Islam from Catholicism Category:Hajj accounts Evelyn Category:Scottish Muslims Category:British women diarists Evelyn Category:British expatriates in Algeria Category:British expatriates in Egypt Category:Scottish socialites Category:Scottish travel writers Category:19th-century Scottish women writers Category:19th-century Scottish autobiographers Category:British women explorers