Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857 – 1936) was a Dutch scholar of Oriental cultures and languages and advisor on native affairs to the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies.
Snouck, fluent in Arabic, through mediation with the Ottoman governor in Jeddah, was examined by a delegation of scholars from Mecca in 1884 and, upon successfully completing the examination, was allowed to commence a pilgrimage to the Holy Muslim city of Mecca in 1885. He was one of the first Western scholars of Oriental cultures to do so.
He admitted that he pretended to be a Muslim as he explained in a letter sent to his college friend, Carl Bezold on 18 February 1886 which is now archived in Heidelberg University Library.[2][3] In 1888 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....Christiaan_Snouck_Hu
