Page 38 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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pre-eminently the prophet entrusted with miracles of heal­

ing and raising the dead. As a follower of Him she may
reasonably be expected to have special gifts for curing
the sick." 60

Thus one could actually justify the acceptance of Christian

medical missionaries in purely Islamic terms, and this indeed

is what the Gulf Arabs appear to have done. Without any overt

hjrpocrisy, they had undertaken, like Ibn Sa’ud, to use West­

ern medicine and Western science to help bolster their own

purel3>- Islamic society. There was an Islamic precedent provided
by Muhammad himself for an exchange of ideas with other "Peo­

ples of the Book," and anything that would so obviously re­

lieve suffering and sustain life must inevitably strengthen

the existing Islamic society.

The missionaries, for their part, now that the Arabian

Mission had established itself, were still no closer to find­

ing an answer to John Van Ess’s central question. Why was the

Mission even there if it could not be successful in an evan­

gelical sense? Some of the less introspective of the mission­

aries could still argue that the "acceptance of'Christian

medecine" and "Christian education” was a major step towards

the acceptance of a complete set of "Christian values and

beliefs."61 Their more thoughtful colleagues cut quickly

through this line of reasoning, however, which confused

Christianity with Western materialism and lost no time in

isolating modern roads, electricity and improved communica­

tions from the basic Christian message.62 They argued that

more time was necessary, however, and ihfinite patience.

The "christianizing of this land may take centuries", John