Page 94 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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to common, shared "beliefs and experiences rather than to dif­

ferences that meaningful communication could "be made. Thus,

he could talk with fathers about the problems of raising chil­

dren and discuss with teachers the techniques most effective

in reaching students. As two citizens of modern nation states

he and an Arab could discuss civic responsibilities and what

Christ or Muhammad had written about them. And so, after many

years, when he had come to appreciate Muslim culture and the

Arab had come to appreciate the Christian outlook, and they

were each on the verge of being converted to the other's faith,

he could feel at last that he had won acceptance and been

161
successful as a missionary.

Yet perhaps the most fundamental reason for the mission­

aries' special position of trust and respect lay paradoxically
in their evangelistic nature. As Harrison had noted with sur­

prise while visiting Riyadh in 1918, and Mrs. Van Peursem had
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described to Chamberlain during her visit in late 1933,

Ibn Sa'ud respected and trusted the missionaries precisely

because they believed in their God and tried"to spread their

religion, " not despite this fact. As a member of one staunchly

religious, evangelical sect, he could respect and trust mem-

bers of another such group even if he himself was not converted.

The British Political Residents in the Gulf perhaps

failed to grasp this point in their dealings with the Sa'udis

and Gulf Arabs. James D. Belgrave, a long-time confidant and

advisor for the Rulers of Bahrain, had written to Captain C.G.

Prior at the foreign Office in 1929 (eleven years after Harri-