Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867-1963 CE (ra) was one of the first recorded British women to perform the Hajj pilgrimage in the Holy City of Makkah. She was assisted in making the arrangements for her Hajj by the British Muslim Harry St. John Abdullah Philby who was a friend of the Al-Sauds and lived in Jiddah.
The Saudis treated her as an humored visitor. Of noble Scottish stock, Lady Evelyn was the child of Charles Adolphus Murray the 7th Earl of Dunmore and Lady Gertrude Coke, who was the daughter of the Second Earl of Leicester.
Lady Evelyn was a skilled lady, a fluent Arabic speaker, a gardener and a capable deerstalker and angler. She was always connected to Islam, having spent time in Algiers, cared for by Muslim nannies, as a child and she was a Muslim as far back as she could remember.
Later in life she met the Pope whilst in Rome, he asked her if she was a Catholic and she surprised him by explaining that she was a Muslim. She wrote a number of books and was an associate of Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, the great British translator of the meanings of the Holy Qur’an into English.
She was an important ground breaker and an inspirational British Muslim lady. Several of her fascinating books can be found with booksellers such as Amazon.
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