A pioneering traveler, he was a rare Western presence in Mecca, but embraced the culture and religion of his hosts with passion in such that he successfully gave people the impression that he had converted to Islam.

[1] 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.

He wrote more than 1,400 papers on the situation in Atjeh and the position of Islam in the Dutch East Indies, as well as on the colonial civil service and nationalism.

His success in the Aceh War earned him influence in shaping colonial administration policy throughout the rest of the Dutch East Indies, however deeming his advice insufficiently implemented he returned to the Netherlands in 1906.

Nonetheless, equally important was the desire to maintain peace and order and Islam was an early source of inspiration to revolt against the colonial administration.

Due to the controversy this caused in the Netherlands, Snouck called the marriage a "scientific opportunity" to study and analyse Islamic wedding ceremonies.

In his Report on the religious-political situation in Aceh, Snouck strongly opposed the use of military terror tactics against the Acehnese and instead advocated well-organized systematic espionage and winning the support of aristocratic elites.

[7] Snouck was a friend of the Arab Grand Mufti of Batavia, Habib Usman bin Yahya, who issued fatwa to support the Dutch war against Aceh.

His chief object was not to study the Hajj, an accurate knowledge of which is easier to obtain by reading some of the innumerable pilgrims' handbooks (manâsik) than by attending the ceremonies in the fearful crowd gathering yearly in the Holy Town, in the Valley of Mina and on the Plain of Arafât, but rather to become intimately acquainted with the daily life of the Mekkans and of the thousands of Muhammadans from all parts of the world living in Mekka for material or spiritual purposes".

In an article published in July 1929,[9] Arthur Jeffery elaborates further: "Our standard scientific work on Mecca and the pilgrimage we owe to the next Christian pilgrim on our roll, Prof. C. Snouck Hurgronje, the Dutch Orientalist, who still lives at Leiden, though retired from his Professorship.

"Hurgronje seems to have enjoyed the freest intercourse with all strata of society in Mecca, and with an adequate scholarly preparation for his task has been able to make Meccan social life a thing of living interest to us.

For instance the right-wing late Pakistani civil servant and Ambassador of Pakistan to the Netherlands in 1962, Qudrat Ullah Shahab, goes so far in his autobiography[10] as to insinuate: "A clear example of a group of Dutch Orientalists which, through their misleading statements and thoughts in the garb of knowledge and wisdom, played a conspicuous role in distorting the features of Islam and Muslims, in causing prejudice against Islam in the minds of the Westerners and in serving as an authority for some amongst the Muslims who suffer from inferiority complex, is that of C. Snouck Hurgronje.

It is an exercise in futility to seek good will, empathy and fairness in the intentions of those who set about to explore the ceremonies of Islam and the conditions of the Muslims, wrapped in the garb of treachery and knavery.

i.e. "However for Snouck Hurgronje, of course, there was no other way to gain access to Mecca than by becoming a Muslim" David Samuel Margoliouth, reminding people of the predicament of non-Muslim observers of the Meccan annual pilgrimage in the nineteenth century, makes the following remark:[12] "It is asserted that the number of the former [read: Europeans] who have succeeded in witnessing the pilgrimage and returning to tell the tale is small compared with that of those who have sacrificed their lives in the attempt; and those who have accomplished the task safely have in most cases done so by the exercise of great cunning and ingenuity."

This is seconded by Arthur Jeffery in following terms:[13] "Reliable authorities have told us in regard to Mecca, that hardly a pilgrimage season passes without somebody being done to death on the suspicion of being a Christian in disguise."

To further add to the controversy of Hurgronje's cultural appropriation to immorally gain access to a sacred site to perpetuate colonial interests, was his own racist remarks, "he (i.e. the orientalist) may have as much sympathy for Islam and its believers as he likes, but most of the time his assurances will be met with mistrust in this remote place (Mecca) with the most narrow of minds".

He wrote:[15] "The Law Doctors of Northern Hindustan set out by tacitly assuming that India is a Country of the Enemy [Dar al-Harb], and deduce therefrom that religious rebellion is uncalled for.

Ceux qui confessent un culte reconnu par l'Islâm peuvent se borner à reconnaître l'autorité de l'État musulman, comme gouvernement suprême."

The article is a polemic against European culture that condemns the moral outrages of World War I. Hurgronje blamed Germany and its cadre of orientalist scholars for the declaration of Jihad made by the Ottoman government in 1914.

[17] He writes: It has been the fate of Islam that this doctrine of the jihād or holy war, the application of which formerly contributed so much to its greatness and renown, should in modern times have set the greatest difficulties in its path...

The way in which the doctrine of jihād is interpreted by the Mohammedan teachers and embraced in less systematic form by the mass of the people, furnishes an excellent indication of the progress that Islam has made at any given time or place in this direction, whither it is being impelled with increasing force by the political conditions of modern days.

In the end it must yield entirely to that force; it must frankly abandon the tenets of jihād and abide by the practically harmless doctrine respecting the last days when a Messiah or a Mahdī will come to reform the world.

He continued to produce numerous elaborate academic studies and became the international authority on all matters relating to the Arab world and Muslim religion.

In 1923 he called for: "Vigorous reform of the constitution of the Dutch East Indies" where "one has to break with the concept of moral and intellectual inferiority of the natives" and allow them "free and representative democratic bodies and optimal autonomy".