The Arabian Mission and education in Bahrain: ‘encounter’ and ‘resistance’, 1892–1917

Abstract

This article examines the encounters between the Arabian Mission and the people of Bahrain from 1892 to 1917. The Arabian Mission which began as an American missionary project, established a station in Bahrain and used education as a tool to evangelize the population. The mission’s activities triggered an opposition movement that worked hard to resist these. This article explores the educational efforts of the Arabian Mission and the role of the opposition which used a novel means to hinder the mission’s activities. In the opposition movement’s effort to stop the mission’s activities, they explored alternative means of providing educational services and sought religious reform. The new educational services and reforms led the local Bahraini community to engage in an internal dialogue about what was considered acceptable, which generated various educational pathways among the different communities.