The Affair of the Muscat ‘Christian’ Widow

In 1930, Major Trenchard Fowle, the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. and Consul in Muscat, experienced an ‘affair’ which caused him ‘some anxiety’. In his Annual Administration Report for that year, he describes a ‘controversy between the Missionaries and the Muscat State’ arising from a Muslim husband and wife who had allegedly converted to Christianity. Upon the husband’s death, there were questions over his burial, and after Muslim rites were performed, missionaries contended that if his widow were to observe ʿiddah (the prescribed period of mourning), this would amount to a ‘renunciation of Christianity’. Fowle characterises the dispute as a ‘thorny question’ in need of resolution (IOR/L/PS/12/3719/1, f. 359v).

The American Arabian Mission

The missionaries mentioned in Fowle’s report were members of the American Arabian Mission under the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America. With stations established in Basra, Bahrain, and Muscat in the early 1890s, the Mission aimed to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to Arabia, and to introduce western medicine, culture and “civilization”. According to the Reverend Gerrit Dirk Van Peursem of the Muscat Mission, writing in 1919, the ‘need of village evangelization is as great in Oman as in any part of the Mohammedan world… With the exception of Muscat, there is no living witness for the Cross anywhere’ (p. 68).

At the time of the ‘affair’, the Muscat Mission was staffed by Van Peursem, Dr W. H. Storm, both their families, and Dr Sarah Hosmon. A medical missionary from Kentucky, USA, Hosmon had arrived at the Bahrain Mission in 1911. Following a course of Arabic study, she was then assigned to the Muscat Mission, where she set up and operated a clinic for women. By 1930, the medical mission was well established, and members conducted tours along the coastal towns and into the interior, treating people of all classes, while also trying to convert them.

A Matter with Potentially Serious Consequences

While beneficial in terms of its medical treatments, the Mission regularly caused the British Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. and Consul vexatious extra work. The United States had closed its consulate in 1915, leaving the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. to look after American interests in Muscat. Tensions usually arose from security concerns, when individual missionaries made trips into the interior and visited places outside the jurisdiction of the Sultanate where their safety could not be guaranteed. However, in December 1930, a religious argument developed between the Sultanate and the American missionaries following the death of Marrash bin Bilal, who had allegedly converted to Christianity in Muscat ten years earlier. Both sides approached Fowle to act on their respective behalves, which required him to tread a fine diplomatic line.

In a letter to the Resident in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. (written retrospectively on 20 January 1931), Fowle explains that the widow Miryam’s brother-in-law insisted on her observing the four months and ten days of ‘adu’ [ʿiddah] in his house. Meanwhile, Miryam had gone to the house of Reverend Van Peursem, who with his wife Josephine claimed that if she returned to her brother-in-law’s house, she would be compelled to renounce her Christian faith. Fowle added that the brother-in-law was ‘by all reports a somewhat fanatical and hotheaded individual’ and would ‘undoubtedly ill-treat, and perhaps even kill her’ (IOR/R/15/6/145, f. 82r).

The Views from Both Sides

Josephine wrote to the Amir of the Muscat Government, Sayyid Saʿid Bin Taymur Bin Faysal, asserting that Miryam had decided some time ago to follow her husband’s religion. Her letter relays that Miryam had been baptised in Bahrain, and now wished to ‘be free to work for her living.’ She pleads with the Amir to grant Miryam ‘her freedom to follow the Religion of her choice and earn her living as she chooses’.

In their response, the Sultan’s Council of Ministers firmly assert that Miryam should leave the missionaries’ house and observe ʿiddah, stating that she has no choice in such matters while her guardians are still alive. They add that to do otherwise would encourage ‘ignorant people’ (al-juhhāl; الجهال), suggesting that they viewed the missionaries’ actions as an interference in affairs of the state. Fowle records their counter-proposal that Miryam perform ʿiddah at her mother-in-law’s house, and that they will guarantee her safety from her brother-in-law, as well as covering her expenses while she is unable to work during mourning. The Council instructs Fowle to assist Miryam in leaving the missionaries’ house, and declines to meet with Van Peursem and Storm in person, deeming it sufficient to communicate through Fowle.

‘A Friend of Both Parties’

In his four-page account of the affair, Fowle describes himself as ‘a friend of both parties’, having interviewed both ‘agitated Missionaries and a disgruntled Council’ over a number of days (IOR/R/15/6/145, f. 84r). He both rationalises and sympathises with the two sides, wishing to offend neither. To the missionaries, he explains that he has no judicial jurisdiction over Muscat subjects. To the Council, he regrets that he has no power to force the Americans to hand over the widow. However, in true diplomatic fashion, he also reminds Sayyid Saʿid of Muscat’s ongoing commercial treaty negotiations with the United States; while the Council can ultimately do as they wish with a Muscat subject (Christian or not), he suggests that it might not be expedient to press the matter. He ends by advising the Council that ‘rien faire c’est agir’ (‘to do nothing is to act’, IOR/R/15/6/145, f. 85r). While not quite ‘doing nothing’, the Council eventually settled the matter privately by allowing Miryam to go into purdah in Dr Sarah Hosmon’s house.

Anglo-American Tensions

Fowle expresses relief when the matter is finally resolved, but also cannot resist a gibe at these American ‘friends’. In his Annual Report, he notes that the matter was amicably resolved ‘mainly due to the sensible attitude adopted by Said Saiyid’ (IOR/L/PS/12/3719/1, f. 359v); but in his letter to the Political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. he is a little more blunt. He states that American Missionaries have a tendency to interfere ‘on behalf of their converts, (or alleged converts), and to regard the latter as having in some mysterious way gained peculiar extra-territorial rights’. This, he claims, is the main cause ‘for whatever anti-American feeling and suspicion there may exist in Muscat’ (IOR/R/15/6/145, f. 85r).

Fowle here echoes the suspicions of local people, who associated the missionaries with expanding western imperialism. This in turn contributed to making the British presence less popular by association. Fowle’s comments, however, are also a nod to Britain’s deepening concerns about American “interference” in the Gulf, a region increasingly recognized as a source of massive and vital oil reserves. For the next two decades, Anglo-American relations in the Gulf would be characterised by competition for oil, rather than for the souls of the Arab population.