Page 44 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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down Mission policy without reference to the Board of Foreign

Missions in New York. The Mission was now "being staffed by

a new generation of missionaries, many of whom came from

missionary families themselves and looked upon the Gulf as.

their natural home. They were sure of the need for mission

doctors and teachers and were familiar with the ways of the

Orient. All of them at the same time were also highly skilled

professionals well versed in western education. They were

thus able to help introduce the Arab to the secrets of west­

ern technology and western civilization which was now ad­

vancing upon beleaguered Islamic society.

The missionaries were no longer lone westerners in

their stations. With the discovery of oil a new breed of

foreigners, also emissaries of modern western culture, had

arrived in the Gulf in the early thirties. The advent of

oil was to have as profound an impact on the Mission’s for­

tunes as had the Depression and an even greater impact upon

the traditional Islamic society around it. Where force of

arms or evangelism had not been able to penetrate, the econ­

omic might of the West had no difficulty in gaining an

entrance. There was nothing particularly insidious or under­

handed about this new invasion - it was, after all, a simple

question of economics. Western industry was searching for

new sources of fossil energy to support its increasingly

mechanized society. Great reserves of black oil were dis­

covered in the Gulf area and the western oil companies wanted

to explore and develop this energy source, passing on at least

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