{"id":6821,"date":"2016-09-16T08:44:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T07:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=6821"},"modified":"2016-09-16T08:44:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T07:44:04","slug":"british-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia-accepts-islam-and-completes-hajj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/british-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia-accepts-islam-and-completes-hajj\/","title":{"rendered":"British ambassador to Saudi Arabia accepts Islam and completes Hajj"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6822\" src=\"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/UK.jpg\" alt=\"UK\" width=\"289\" height=\"174\" \/>The British ambassador to Saudi Arabia completed his Hajj pilgrimage this year after accepting Islam in 2011.<br \/>\nSimon Collis is believed to be the first British ambassador to perform the holy pilgrimage.<br \/>\nHe was photographed at Makkah wearing the white robe known as the \u201cihram\u201d traditionally worn by pilgrims.<br \/>\nCollis was pictured alongside his wife Huda Mujarkech in photos posted to Twitter.<br \/>\nHe has since revealed he became Muslim shortly before their marriage in 2011.<br \/>\nSaudi Arabian writer Fawziah Albakr posted the photos to Twitter. She wrote in Arabic: \u201cFirst British ambassador to the Kingdom undertakes the Hajj following his conversion to Islam. Simon Collis with his wife Huda in Mecca. Praise be to God.\u201d<br \/>\nMr Collis tweeted in Arabic that after living among Muslims for thirty years he had accepted Islam prior to his marriage.<br \/>\nWell wishers tweeted their congratulations to Mr Collis and his wife, to which he replied \u201cThank you and Eid Mubarak\u201d.<br \/>\nThe UK ambassador has been based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia\u2019s capital, since 2015.<br \/>\nHe has previously been posted to Syria, Iraq, India, Qatar, UAE, Tunisia and Yemen.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/british-ambassador-to-saudi-arabia-accepts-islam-and-completes-hajj\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The British ambassador to Saudi Arabia completed his Hajj pilgrimage this year after accepting Islam in 2011. Simon Collis is believed to be the first British ambassador to perform the holy pilgrimage. He was photographed at Makkah wearing the white robe known as the \u201cihram\u201d traditionally worn by pilgrims. Collis was pictured alongside his wife &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,25,9],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6823,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions\/6823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}