Eldon Rutter

Born in London in 1894, Rutter's first taste of the Muslim world came during the First World War, when he served as a trooper at Gallipoli and in Egypt and Palestine. Having converted to Islam in Malaya, he spent 1924-25 in Egypt preparing for the Hajj, immersing himself in Muslim life, law and history and becoming so fluent in Arabic that he was able to pass himself off as a learned Syrian. His year-long sojourn in Makkah and the Hijaz was longer than that of any previous Western visitor. Soon...See more

Born in London in 1894, Rutter's first taste of the Muslim world came during the First World War, when he served as a trooper at Gallipoli and in Egypt and Palestine. Having converted to Islam in Malaya, he spent 1924-25 in Egypt preparing for the Hajj, immersing himself in Muslim life, law and history and becoming so fluent in Arabic that he was able to pass himself off as a learned Syrian. His year-long sojourn in Makkah and the Hijaz was longer than that of any previous Western visitor. Soon after the publication of The Holy Cities of Arabia in 1928, he made two more Middle Eastern journeys. After the Second World War he lived a peripatetic life around Europe and was last heard of in 1956. To this day it is not known how, when or where he died. See less