The son of Britain’s richest gypsy says he has now found inner peace after turning to Islam.
Alfie Best Jnr, whose billionaire dad, Alfie Snr, is one of the richest people in the country, reckons he is the first traveller to take up the faith, which has resulted in him ditching booze and instead studying the Quran.
The 25-year-old Romany gypsy is joint 85th on the Rich List for people under 30, with an estimated £10million fortune – he drives around in a £180,000 Bentayga Bentley, has a £1.2million fifth-floor Knightsbridge flat overlooking Harrods and wears a £150,000 platinum watch that is encrusted with grains of stone from a space meteorite.
But since becoming a Muslim, he now says prayers in Arabic five times a day and visits a mosque at least once a week, and all after finding Allah following a helicopter trip to Cornwall for lunch.
He and four friends flew off to a five-star hotel in his dad’s £4.5million Aston Martin helicopter for a bite to eat last September, but had to return early as one of his mates’ mum was attending a mosque in Lewisham, South London, for The Shahada – declaring her faith in one God, Allah.
He revealed to The Sun: “We were going for food afterwards so it was either sit outside in the car or take my shoes off and go into the mosque. My friend cried as his watched his mum take her Shahada.
“And I felt something I haven’t experienced before in any religious place. It made my whole body tingle, like this is right for me.
“Something was trying to either contact me or something was trying to reach me.
“It was very, very strange but in a good way. I felt I belonged there.”
The entrepreneur, who is also super-featherweight professional boxer, left school at just 12 and hired a van and a driver to sell cleaning products to factory bosses.
Such was his success that he bought a nightclub just four years later – which he sold after 12 months – and now he owns two caravan parks and sells expensive watches.
Alfie Jnr added: “I’m unique – I’m the only gypsy who has converted to Islam."
He had his own Shahada at Regent’s Park mosque and also revealed that while his father had reservations about his new life choice, his mother was fully supportive.
