KUWAIT TODAY, YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW Kuwait today is, per capita, the world’s richest welfare State. Its

territory is about the size of Connecticut. Its Arab citizens number less than two hundred thousand.

((Tomorrow,” say the Kuwaitis, both those pious and those otherwise, “Kuwait, irz s h 2 Allah9 will be richer.” For the pious the Arabic words mean D.V.; for the others they mean “perhaps,” or “we hope.”

Kuwait and much of the rest of Arabia have been potentially rich longer than the human race has existed, but none of the people there or elsewhere knew it. I t is oil plus knowledge that have made Kuwait rich. Oil is expected to provide wealth there for 200 more years.

I t has been the Arabs’ centuries-old deep desire for self-rule that has made and kept them usually free and independent of foreign rule and so they have been able to inherit and now enjoy their resources. Early in the second century of the Christian era the Romans tried to include Arabia in their empire and failed ignominiously. Persia and also Ethiopia have at times conquered and governed small areas of Arabia for short periods.

In 1895 two momentous acts preserved Kuwait’s threatened self- rule and gave the State its permanent internal independence and a powerful foreign ally. I t happened this way:

The Sultan of Turkey, as Khalifah of all Muslims, claimed Arabia, inhabited by Muslims, as part of his Empire. But the Arabs of Kuwait, having come from tribal Central Arabia, still wanted to be governed by their own tribal Shaikhs, the Sabih family. Their then ruling Shaikh was ready to negotiate with the Turks who wanted him to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Sultan. When that was known Mub5rak A1 S a E h and his older son shot and killed his two older brothers and assumed the rulership. That action preserved Kuwait’s internal independence. 1 Later Mubarak, as ruling Shaikh, made a treaty, signed January 23, 1899, with Great Britain, which provided Kuwait with protection on request from attacks from any foes in return for accepting Great Britain’s participation and advice in all Kuwait’s foreign relations.

In those years Germany was expanding her interests and influence eastwards and sought to extend her Baghdad Railway rights south- wards to the north shore of the Bay of Kuwait and so have access to The Gulf, then named on all maps as the Persian Gulf, but now on the Arabic maps as the Arabian Gulf.

Shaikh Mubarak and Kuwait benefitted from the Agreement with the British that same year when a British gunboat prevented a Turkish cruiser from making Mubarak accept perforce the Sultan’s invitation to visit him in Constantinople. He became a strong and feared ruler.

The details of the act and its patriotic explanation are reported in Col. H.R.P. Dickson’s Kuwait and her neighbors, p. 136, and, fuller, in his earlier The Arabs of the Desert, pp. 266 f f .

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He banished his younger son, Salim, to the desert. He caused a Kuwaiti pilot, who, he learned, was plotting against him, to be blinded by hot nails and exiled.

There is a story about Shaikh Mubarak to the effect that one 2 of the founders of the American Mission in Arabia landed at Kuwait from one of the British India steamers that made fortnightly calls at the Gulf ports. He called on Shaikh Mubarak at his official reception hall. The Ruler, on learning that his visitor was a Christian missionary, said to him: “You know that I killed two of my brothers. What would your religion say to me about that?” The report, which must have come from the missionary himself, was that Shaikh Mubarak was told about the repentant thief, dying on the cross, who declared that Jesus, his fellow crucifixion victim, was innocent of wrong-doing and was really the Lord of a future kingdom of his own. There is no intimation that the fratricide Shaikh repented the killing or that he felt that no re- pentance was necessary since his motive was patriotic rather than personal.

Certainly Shaikh Mubarak had some gentle and generous ideas. In 1911 he allowed the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church in America to establish medical and educational work in Kuwait. He provided the large house of his son Salim as a residence for the lady doctor and her husband and the exiled pilot’s house for her colleague and their medical work. I t was learned that both houses had been left unused because respectable Kuwaitis preferred not to rent them.

It was in this Diwaniyyat Shaikh Salim that the Americans enter- tained Kuwait’s British Political Agent 3 one evening. Their goat, which supplied them with milk, started bleating and could not be per- suaded to stop. The bleating would have spoiled the company dinner if the doctor had not gone after his syringe and loaded it with some- thing which he emptied in the goat’s ear. That worked and the evening was undisturbed until after the guest had gone.

The American missionaries who had visited Kuwait had not been allowed to stay. Then the surgeon 4 of the Mission Hospital at Basrah in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) was called to Muhammarah by the Shaikh there to treat the Shaikh’s daughter. The operation was successful. Then the Shaikh recommended to Shaikh Mubarak, his close friend. that he have the same American surgeon to help Mubarak’s daughtei, who also needed an operation. The surgeon was again successful.

When the doctor told Shaikh Miubarak that the American Mission wished to purchase land on which to build a hospital for the benefit of any of his people who needed medical or surgical care, Mubarak agreed to sell some land along the shore west of the city. The British officials made no objection and, indeed, have always welcomed

2 Dr. S. M. Zwemer. Captain W. H. I. Shakespear. Dr. A. K. Bennett, Univ. of Michigan.

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American missionary and latterly also commercial enterprises along the eastern coast of Arabia.

During 1912 the Arabian Mission fulfilled its promise to Shaikh Mubarak. Two engineers affiliated with the Mission, graduates of the University of Michigan, built a steel and concrete hospital. When, forty years later, it was replaced by a larger two-story building, the difficulty of razing Arabia’s first hospital of the kind was what excited most comment.

Also, during 1912, Kuwait’s two pioneer medical missionaries were slowly gaining the approval of the city’s people by their surgical and medical skill and care. The lady doctor, 5 it was said, cut open a Kuwai- ti woman, removed one of her organs, cut off a tumor, washed the or- gan in the sea, where everybody could wash everything, put the organ back in place, sewed her up and “now she is as good as ever.” The other doctor 6 tried to help a little lad who had hydrocephalis by making a drain between the boy’s head and shoulder, using a long vein from his own left arm. The Ruler’s army commander, after seeing the scar on the doctor’s arm, declared to his friends in his large reception room, “I would not do that for this whole room full of silver rupees.”

The third American, who was the preacher on Sundays, began a day-school for boys and a night-school for young men who wanted only to learn English and typing. Then the editor of an Egyptian jour- nal visited Kuwait and advised the people not to permit their boys to attend the American school, but to start one of their own, even though they had to import a qualified head-master. So the Mubarakiyyah School was founded with a Turkish mulla from Smyrna who used to tell the Arab pupils not to recite the consonants of the Qur’an as he did with his tongue, but as he did in his heart. Shortly afterwards the Persians, who formed about one-tenth of the city’s population, started a school for their own boys. The teachers of the closed Mission school put the school’s twelve-inch terrestrial globe on display in their book- shop on the city’s main street, where at times it produced some excite- ment among visitors from the desert. It is of interest to note that the campus of Kuwait’s splendid Secondary School at Shuwaikh has a mammoth metal terrestrial globe. It is pictured on Kuwait post cards and on the ninety-fils postage stamp along with the present Ruler’s portrait. There is no causal relationship between the two school globes known or implied here.

Incidentally, the names Kuwait and Shuwaikh are the diminutives of h t , “fort” and shuikh, which means “old man,” “wise man,” and “leader.” The Arabs are happiest when all three meanings are combined in one individual.

The city of Kuwait was founded about 250 years ago when tribal

Eleanor Taylor Calverley, M.D., Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. * Paul W. Harrison, M.D., Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

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Arabs of north-central Arabia came there under the leadership of the A1 SaEh, the $abih family. Fishing furnished some of them their livelihood. In the summer many men became pearl-divers. In the winter they manned large teak-wood, termite-proof dhows, which carried cargoes of Arabian desert racing horses and also Mesopotamian dates to India. To the coastal towns of Southern Arabia and East Africa they carried dates. The return cargoes from India were teak-wood for ships and rice. From Africa they brought building lumber for roofs of adobe houses. These industries attracted more and more tribesmen to the south shore of the Bay of Kuwait, which is claimed to be large enough to float the British fleet.

This move of Arabia's tribal youth from the deserts and villages of the interior to the sea shores and border-land cities has been an imme- morial necessary economic custom. Now it is the oil prosperity that is producing Arabia's great economic and social changes. A desert Badawi with long curls and night-gown daytime attire, living in a black goat- hair tent, in less than ten years can now become a salaried truck driver wearing trousers and live with his wife in a cement house that has electricity and modern plumbing. That has been the career of thousands of Arabs within one generation.

After the hospital was built and a proper dwelling was needed for the doctor in charge,T Shaikh Mubarak was approached for more land. The engineers had replaced the original landmarks by concrete posts. This was noticed and complaints were made to the Ruler. On the day appointed to check the new markers with the measurements in the Bill of Sale, the Shaikh cautioned the officials to use the stand- ard cubic length, not his cubit, which was longer by two inches. When the officials reported their results, it was found that the new markers conformed exactly to the figures in the deed. Then the Ruler made a speech to the large assembly. He commended the Americans for their service to the city, and then said he would not sell to them the extra land but would give it to them as a free gift. He never charged the Mission members any import duties and that practice has been continued by his four successors.

Shaikh Mubarak could neither read nor write. His ears and ex- periences told him all he needed to know about Arab history and desert warfare, and also the acts and aims of neighboring nations. He was not always successful in his own desert battles, especially with the Rashid dynasty of north central Arabia, which was aided by the Turks from Damascus and Baghdad. He could and did give sanctuary and support to the defeated Suciidi ruling family of Najd, driven from its Riy5d capital. It was from Kuwait that at the beginning of the century the twenty-year old CAbd al-CAziz bin Suciid, with twenty picked men of his army of 200 followers, made his famous spectacular re-capture

7 Dr. C. S. G. Mylrea.

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of Riyfid and re-established the Suciidi dynasty in Najd. SuCudi Arabia is now the largest state in size in the Peninsula since the days of the Arabian Prophet Muhammad. It is not the greatest in potential oil resources nor the most advanced as a welfare state. Those features are Kuwait’s.

Yaung CAbd al-CAziz did not reinstate his father, CAbd al-RahmZn, as Ruler in Riyld. Like the Arabian Prophet he promoted a religious movement to consolidate and extend his rule. His Ikhwiin, Brethren, became strong enough to send the Turks, without a battle, from the well-watered and therefore called al-AhsH’ province of East Arabia. Some extremists, it is believed against Ibn SuCad‘s wishes, even threatened to attack Kuwait, whose inhabitants tried to persuade their Shaikh to build a wall to protect their city. That, Shaikh Mubarak had always refused to do, telling his people, “Qalbi sfdr Kuwuit, I (literally, my heart) am Kuwait’s wall.” He also knew that Ibn Su‘iid would never forget the years of hospitality he and his father had received there.

Mulla Salih was Shaikh Mubarak’s Secretary of State. He read to the Ruler all official correspondence, wrote and read back all replies and affixed signatures with Mubarak’s seal-ring. The faithfulness that the SabHh family has inspired is indicated by the fact that a grandson of Mubarak‘s secretary holds the same office half a century later,

The SabZh shaikhly rule has not been arbitrary. Competition to the American Mission’s medical service was attempted by an outside agita- tor who started a Kuwait Benevolent Society and began to equip a dispensary. The Society soon lost its members and its dispensary equipment was ultimately given to the Mission hospital.

Similarly, after the 1912 summer recess, the American educational work was resumed by request. I t never became as large as the Muba- rakiyyah School and it ceased its service after oil wealth financed the State’s eductional program in 1936. However, a series of three Arabian Readers had been published without subsidy or royalty complications. They may, like the New England Horn Books, become collectors’ items for Kuwait’s future wealthy bibliophiles !

The American missionaries have never interfered with Kuwait’s internal politics. In 1928, at a missionary conference in Jerusalem, the principle of non-political activity by missionaries was adopted. Soon afterwards Kuwait was threatened by another Ikhwiin attack, perhaps also unauthorized. British gunboats were again on hand. Shaikh Ahmad bin Jabir A1 SabZh was Ruler at the time. He was informed of the Mission’s adherence to the Conference’s principle. Years later he ex- pressed his deep appreciation to the Mission Board’s secretary * who was touring the Reformed Church’s fields. It is on record that Shaikh Ahmad earnestly advised King Ibn Su‘iid to welcome a Mission

Dr. F. M. Potter.

44 THE MUSLIM WORLD

station in RiyBd. Ibn Su‘fid was then content to invite Mission medical personnel there, but no preachers, with one exception, a nurse’s hus- band.

Unplanned and incidental expressions of the service of the mis- sionaries in Kuwait have their own special interest. In 1953 the first American teacher there and a former editor 9 of a Middle East journal made a brief visit to Kuwait and were taken by the Mission personnel to call upon Kuwait’s present Ruler, Shaikh CAbdullah al-SHlim A1 SabHh, to congratulate him on the third anniversary of his accession to the rule of the Shaikhdom. After coffee he was reminded of the time he gave the preacher-teacher’s three young daughters three kittens that they admired, and, the next day, kindly accepted them back because the kittens had loudly objected all night long to being separated from their mother, brothers and sisters. Then a group of Britons came in, bringing their congratulations. When Shaikh CAbdullah introduced the Americans he added, “These Americans came to us when Kuwait was poor, They gave us our first introduction to modern medicine and our first introduction to modern education.”

One of the Americans then asked a question the answer to which he already knew. He said, “Shaikh CAbdullah, I hear that you do not take any of the oil revenue for yourself. Is that true?”

His answer was prompt and frank. “Yes,” he said, “it is true. I have an Englishman who is charged with receiving all the oil revenue due to us and with using it for the welfare of Kuwait.”

Later his brother, who had been a pupil in the Mission school and afterwards spent six years at the American schools in Beirut, told the Americans who had heard what Shaikh (Abdullah had said, “What my brother told you is indeed true. For himself he uses Kuwait’s customs receipts and also what he gets from the sale of state land which is sold to Kuwait citizens only.”

That same afternoon the Ruler was invested with the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and became Shaikh Sir (Abdullah. The patent of investiture was read in English by Sir Rupert Hay, whose book, The Persian Gulf States, is a very excellent work. A translation of the investiture document was then read in Arabic. It is doubtful whether many of the multitude present noticed that the two Saints were divested in Arabic of the sainthood with which they were entitled in English.

One of the American teacher’s former pupils saw him at the in- vestiture exercises and rushed up and gave him an Arab embrace, planting a kiss on his right cheek. Then he stepped backward and said, “That is not enough !” and embraced him again, planting another kiss on his left cheek. Well, that’s all right in Arabia.

Following the celebration Shaikh Fahad quickly organized an Arab banquet without telling his former teacher. He invited all his fellow

Dr. Harvey Hall.

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students and all the American missionary and consular personnel that he could reach by telephone. The result was an unforgettable occasion.

The next morning, while the teacher and his fellow guest were at breakfast in Fahad‘s town house, a knock was heard on the outside door. The teacher opened the door and found one of the former stu- dents standing there. He invited the young man in to share the breakfast.

(‘No,” said the Kuwaiti, “I have come just to tell you three things. I want you to know that three of your former students are now mudirs, directors, in charge of Kuwait’s public works, medical and customs departments. Next,” he went on, (‘the boys who learned English in your school are now successful business men. Third, those who did not stay and learn English in your school are failures.” Then he turned and left.

In 1955 the teacher and his doctor wife were in Cairo. Shaikh Fahad invited them to come to Kuwait as his guests. While in Cairo he told the teacher about an interview he had with a high British official con- cerning Kuwait. He said, “When I was in London I said to this official, “Sir, you know you British are not as mighty as you used to be. Now you need us, just as we need you. All we ask is that you deal with us as you want ius to deal with you.” Then he went on and said, “That is one of your proverbs, isn’t it ?”

Shaikh Fahad’s sudden death in 1961 of a heart attack was a great loss to his family, his friends and to all Kuwait. He was progressive and energetic, with a strong love for the welfare of his people. At a dinner given in New York by an oil company, with Kuwait mis- sionary people, Beirut educationalists and other American and Middle East guests, Fahad made an extemporaneous speech. His words of gratitude and praise for the medical and educational benefits Kuwait and he personally had received were beyond his ability to express in English and he reverted to Arabic to give as fine a tribute to Ameri- cans as this one has ever heard.

Oil and Kuwait’s two Rulers since its discovery there, Shaikh Sir Ahmad al-JPbir and his cousin Shaikh Sir CAbdulIah al-SBlim, have made Kuwait a welfare state. That the city has not become like Sodom and Gomorrah is in large measure due to the strong leadership of these two men.

In Kuwait all education for Arab boys and girls is free. Education abroad for Kuwaitis is also provided. All medical care in government

-hospitals and clinics is free for Kuwait people. A campus, educational buildings and equipment and teachers’ residences for university instruc- tion are already provided for use as soon as required. Super-generous is the term which describes the State’s provision for teachers and students. The question can arise, indeed, has already arisen, about the possibility of harmful, character-deteriorating results from unearned education. What is plentiful and free is too often Unappreciated and wasted.

46 THE MUSLIM WORLD

In 1955 Kuwait’s first American teacher was stopped by a man on a street in Cairo who said to him, “Don’t you know me?” In reply to questions he went on to say, “I am one of your Kuwait school boys. I am here with my three sons, my brother’s three sons and the grandson of one of your best friends there, putting all seven boys in the British school in Macadi (a suburb of Cairo). Yes, it will cost us 4,000 pounds a year, but we want them to get character training such as I received in your school.”

All Arabs know how to say things pleasant to hear, but it can be hoped that his government refunded his expenditures.

In any case, he stated the great problem connected with all over- generous public welfare service : the possible deterioration of character stamina through acceptance of unearned and unwisely used surplus funds. For honorable living all persons possessing great wealth need the character development that practises what is included in the phrase noblesse oblige. The problem of the wise use of private wealth has been largely solved in Great Britain by families wealthy through hundreds of years by giving each new generation such education and training as that provided by Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge. In the United States of America the wise and worthy use of surplus money is outlined and detailed in the charters of the many benevolent founda- tions, of which the Rockefeller and Ford are conspicuaus examples.

“Our Wealth is for the Welfare of Humanity in Need!” may be suggested as a watchword to solve the problem of excess money in Kuwait and elsewhere. Although this suggestion is from a Christian, it will not be considered impertinent as it is from a Kuwaiti Mustaw!in, who was called Mulla by Shaikh Mubgrak‘s son, Shaikh JPbir.

The ills of humanity are disease, ignorance, poverty and sin, the last of which includes greed and oppression. Sin yields to true religion, which, among other things, teaches human equality. Poverty yields to the wise and fair use of nature’s resources. Ignorance yields to needed and available knowledge. Disease yields to care and information, of which much still needs to be discovered.

There are areas of the world and graups of mankind where one or more of these ills are still rampant, excessive and long continued. Some diseases have been conquered but their cure is not everywhere known or used. Ignorance and poverty decrease as man’s humanity to man increases. There are groups of people who are suffering from oppres- sion by other people. The oppressed need goodwill and help and have strong claim upon the assistance that any favored people’s extra funds can wisely provide.

The Red Cross and the Red Crescent rush aid anywhere after disasters. The United Nations Organization aids refugees and would do more if more funds were provided. Some racial minorities and even some national majorities are oppressed by the denial to them of the

KUWAIT 47

human right to fair and equal treatment. Discrimination by force still needs an enlightened world conscience.

Let the religious leaders of the world recognize their privilege and responsibility to emphasize all mankind's right to freedom, goodwill and equality of opportunity. Then the welfare of the world will increase and in time prevail.

The claim 10 made by Iraq in 1961 to the State of Kuwait was based on the assertion that Kuwait had been and therefore still is a part of the Province of Basrah, which, with the Provinces of Baghdad and Maw$ became Iraq in 1921. If the claim were historically true and internationally valid, it might become a disastrous precedent. Certain governments, acknowledging such claims, might lose their present satel- lites and others might regain presently independent nations. The result would be such world-wide confusion, and warfare that mankind could not survive.

Wars, conquests and enforced treaties of peace are being gradually superseded by plebiscites, free elections and amicable treaties and agreements, for the determination of laws, governments and bounda- ries in many, but not all, parts of the world. The suppression and op- pression of some racial and other groups, even by minorities through the possession and use of weapons, still exist within national states and international organizations.

If Iraq should have its claim sluccessfully supported, then Turkey would have a similar but stronger claim to Iraq, which, as Mesopota- mia, was long a part of the Turkish Empire. Syria, which formerly included Lebanon, Transjordan and Palestine, belonged to Turkey as also did Egypt, North Africa and other areas. Similarly other nation- al peoples, now independent, were included in other empires. If the newly independent nations were to support the claim of Iraq's Premier, then to be honestly consistent, Iraq itself and each other new state should voluntarily revert to its former dependent status. The Republic of Israel, with ancient historic claims, might similarly rejoice to receive within its borders Transjordan, some of Mesopotamia, the Sinai part of Egypt and especially all of the Arab sector of Jerusalem, and then - give up everything to the Turkish Empire !

The latest news item reports that Shaikh CAbdullah and Kuwait are still free and independent, with support from the Arab League and Great Britain.

Hscrtf ord, Connecticut EDWIN E. CALVERLEY -

Predicted in Col. Dickson's Kuwait and Her Ncighbors, 1956, p. 67.

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