Page 61 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

46

by its Arab hosts.

The historical disinterestedness and selflessness of

the Mission’s involvement was undoubtedly one of the main

contributing factors to the Arab acceptance of it despite the

ongoing wave of anti-western xenophobia. Shaikh Mubarak the

Great had certainly used this argument to great effect when

j.
justifying to the other Kuwaitis his action of giving Kuwaiti
113
land to the Mission in 19130

. • o these men! Who are they? Are they diplomats?
Are they politicians? Merchants? No! These men have
come here to teach us and the lord knows we are as ig­
'
norant as donkeys. They will build a hospital and take
care of our sick. Everybody dies today but when these
men come we shall have our sick attended to. The doctor
wants something. I don’t know what it is but I want to
say publicly that whatever it is he wants I am going to
give it to him.’1 114
I
To really understand why the missionaries held such a

special and unique position of trust in the Gulf in the

r\ 1350’s, however, the religious aspect of their mission has

to be mentioned. Eor there appears to have been a paradoxical

Arab response to the mission’s evangelistic efforts. On the

one hand the Arabs mistrusted and feared the Christian mis-

sionaries as not only unbelievers, infidels, but also pro­

selytizing infidels! And on the other hand they respected

them for these same qualities. Paul Harrison was greatly

struck by this paradox in his first visit to Riyadh, in the

center of the puritanical Wahhabi heartland. Ear from being

reviled as a Christian, a fact which he made no attempt to

hide, he found that he was viewed with ”distinct approbation”

for his religious views which were taken as proof that he