Who is Zainab Cobbold?

Following the death of her former husband in 1929, she 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. In 1934, a personal account of her trip was published with the title Pilgrimage to Mecca. There is an excerpt from her work in Michael Wolfe’s book One Thousand Roads to Mecca.