Page 20 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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The Mission’s evident success in its educational and

medical efforts, when contrasted with its evangelistic failure

was, however, causing a serious "cride de conscience"* Zwemer

had worried about this problem in Bahrain from the very beg­

inning and vehemently insisted that the religious work inust

be pushed ahead despite all opposition. "The opposition to

our being at Bahrain," he had written in 1893,"still centers

about our Bible-shop, which is a sure indication that this

part of our work should be pushed for all it is worth; and

„26
God’s word is above price, James Cantine was equally in-

sistent on the primary importance of the religious mission.

In 1897, however, he was still writing despairingly from

Basrah, "It is a humiliation and grief to us that so little

spiritual result is seen from our work here."^7

As the missionaries gained increasing acceptance as

doctors andteachers, nevertheless, more lip service was paid

to their religious teachings. Indeed there seems to be good

reason to believe that their Arab hosts genuinely liked them

and trustedthem as men of religion, even though they did not

share the same religious beliefs. Muhammad had, after all,

preached tolerance for Christians and Jews as "people of the

book." There was also an Islamic precedent for the hakim

or doctor being a learned and religious man. Hence there was

no inherent contradiction in the Arab acceptance of Zwemer

(whom they had nicknamed Dhayif Allah, the Guest of God) as

a healer and a missionary without succumbing to his evangelism.

Dr. Sharon Thoms, coming from a more fundamentalist background,