Zainab Cobbold (born Lady Evelyn Murray; 17 July 1867
– January 1963) was a Scottish diarist, traveller and noblewoman who was known for her
conversion
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
to
Islam in the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
.
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.
History
The title was created in 1686 for Lord Charles Murray, second son of John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl. He was made Lord Murray of Blair, Moulin and Tillimet (or Tullimet) and ...
and Lady Gertrude Coke, daughter of the
Second Earl of Leicester.
[Facey, William (2008)]
"Mayfair to Makkah"
'' Saudi Aramco World'', Vol. 59, No. 5, pages 18–23. She married
John Dupuis Cobbold
John Dupuis Cobbold (11 March 1861, Ipswich – 12 June 1929, Ipswich) was a member of the Ipswich based Cobbold family.
John was born at The Cliff, Ipswich. He was the son of John Patteson Cobbold and Adele Harriette Dupuis, daughter of George ...
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, Henley Brook, Western Aust ...
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
on 23 April 1891.
Following a party in May 1891, at the Cobbold family home
Holywells,
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...
, 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 and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and on the
Glencarron Estate.
Childhood
Cobbold spent much of her childhood in
Algiers and
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
in the company of
Muslim nannies.
She considered herself a Muslim from a young age despite not officially professing her faith until she met the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
.
She became a Mayfair socialite. She spent her childhood winters in North Africa where her fascination with Islam developed.
Conversion to 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, she started to plan her pilgrimage, or
Hajj to
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...
. She contacted
Hafiz Wahba
Hafiz Wahba (15 July 1889 – 1967) was an Egyptian diplomat who was then naturalised in Saudi Arabia. Fuad Hamza and he were the first ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, the former in France and the latter in the United Kingdom. In addition, they were ...
, ambassador for the
Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd
The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd ( ar, مملكة الحجاز ونجد, '), initially the Kingdom of Hejaz and Sultanate of Nejd (, '), was a dual monarchy ruled by Abdulaziz following the victory of the Saudi Sultanate of Nejd over the Hashemite ...
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 journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
to
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...
.
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 3 April 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 converted ...
's book ''
One Thousand Roads to Mecca''.
She visited
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
with a friend and went to see the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
who asked her if she was
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. 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 Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
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 Ka'bah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah ( ar, ٱلْكَعْبَة ٱلْمُشَرَّفَة, lit=Honored Ka'bah, links=no, translit=al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah), is a building at the c ...
:
“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''.
During the world wars the Muslims who fought for Britain were spending and praying their Eid prayer in Woking Mosque; she was amongst some of the aristocrats in the iconic Eid prayer picture at Woking Mosque. She was heavily involved in Dawah
Dawah ( ar, دعوة, lit=invitation, ) is the act of inviting or calling people to embrace Islam. The plural is ''da‘wāt'' (دَعْوات) or ''da‘awāt'' (دَعَوات).
Etymology
The English term ''Dawah'' derives from the Arabic ...
like William Quilliam and other noble English men and women of the time.
She was a fluent Arabic speaker and claimed she had been Muslim all her life and there was no intrinsic moment she converted.
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 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 t ...
. There was no Muslim in Scotland to perform her janazah so they contacted Woking Mosque and the Imam drove up in the snow to perform her janazah because she had stipulated she wanted to be buried on a hill on her estate facing Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...
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 a car-park off the A 890 in Glen Carron
River Carron ( gd, Carrann, IPA: kʰaᵲən̴̪ 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 ...
. 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 began ...
( W&N, ) describes a pilgrimage by three Muslim women in search of Cobbold's grave.
References
Further reading
Clive Hodges: ''Cobbold & Kin: Life Stories from an East Anglian Family'' (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2014)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cobbold, Zainab
1867 births
1963 deaths
Daughters of Scottish earls
Converts to Islam from Catholicism
British Muslims
Hajj accounts
Zainab
Scottish Muslims
Scottish diarists
British explorers