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Medical Missionaries in Gaza: The History of Ahli Arab Hospital
Abstract
Scholarship on Anglo-American missionaries in al-Mashreq is abundant but often focused on ecclesiastical and educational efforts during the long nineteenth century. This paper expands scholarship on missions in al-Mashreq in terms of period and institutional focus. It considers the evolution of Anglo-American missions after 1950, concentrating on medicine as the means of mission encounter. I approach the topic with a micro-history of Al Ahali Arab Hospital (formerly Gaza Baptist Hospital) in Gaza City. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) founded the hospital in 1882 and ran it until 1949 when it became financially untenable. Unlike other CMS medical missions in al-Mashreq, this hospital was purchased by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (FMB) who ran the hospital from 1954 until 1981. The FMB missionaries transformed the hospital into a means for direct proselytism, which they touted over the limited proselytism of the hospital under the CMS. How did the FMB missionaries adapt and sustain the hospital despite their strong emphasis on proselytism? This paper argues that the FMB missionaries were able to maintain their medical mission in Gaza for three reasons: 1) the hospital received significant financial support from the newly formed United Nations Relief and Works Agency, 2) it specialized in obstetric and pediatric care, and 3) it maneuvered political turmoil and appealed to authority when necessary. To make this argument, I critically evaluate mission records and missionary accounts found in the archives of the FMB and CMS. These accounts include both English and Arabic language material written by the doctors, nurses, and administrators of the hospital. I will pair my critical evaluation of these accounts with a comparative analysis of other medical missions in Palestine. This paper intends to call attention to the colonial legacy of missions and medicine in al-Mashreq.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Central Asia
Gaza
Mashreq
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries