The Discourse and Experience of the Arabian Mission's Medical Missionaries

In 1889 the pioneers of the Arabian Mission – a mission under direction of the Reformed Church in America – arrived in Arabia with the aim of Christianizing Muslims of the Najd and Arabian Peninsula. By the turn of the century, the missionaries were using medical knowledge and service as an interface for dialogue and evangelism. This article‘s aim is two-fold. First, it examines the history of the Arabian Mission and the history of medicine in the Gulf. Second, it explores the impact of the Americans on the Muslim communities from 1920 to 1960. To do so, it explores the experience of missionaries as well as the discourses missionaries constructed about Arabs and Arabia. It examines how the missionaries transcend the label of cultural imperialist, and how both the function and language of the missionaries evolved as oil wealth transformed the Gulf nations of Bahrain and Kuwait. This article, exploring the impact of the Arabian Mission from the late 1930s through 1960, continues the discussion published in the preceding issue of Middle Eastern Studies

Ancient history · Archaeology · Evangelism · Islam · Middle East · Peninsula · Political science · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Socioeconomic Development in MENA