UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia converts to Islam

Simon Collis, the United Kingdom's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, has performed Hajj after recently converting to Islam.

Simon Collis and his wife Huda Majarkech. Picture: iNews

The diplomat was pictured with his wife in the traditional white garments of the annual pilgrimage, which is compulsory for all Muslims to perform at least once in their lives.

Mr Collis has been posted in Riyadh, the capital of the Arab kingdom, since 2015.

He is the first British ambassador to perform Hajj.

He is married to Huda al-Mujarkech, a Syrian Muslim.

Mr Collis has previously served as Britain’s ambassador to Iraq, Bahrain and Syria – where he was kicked out by President Bashar al-Assad in 2012 when diplomatic relations collapsed in the face of the growing Syrian civil war.

‘Convert to Islam’

He has also served in positions in Tunisia, India, Yemen and the UAE. He told a user that he had converted to Islam “after spending 30 years in Muslim societies”.

Photographs of Mr Collis and Ms Mujarkech on Hajj were posted on an Arabic-language Twitter account by the user Fawziah al-Bakr with along with the comment: “The first British ambassador to the Kingdom performing Hajj after converting to Islam: Simon Collis with his wife Huda in Makkah [Mecca].”

The holy cities of Medina and Mecca are off-limits to non-Muslims on the basis of a verse in the Koran. In terms of Hajj specifically, the pilgrimage is so over-subscribed that the Saudi authorities only issue visas to a proportion of those who apply each year.

This article originally featured on our sister site iNews.

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