The Kuwaitis in Confrontation with the Cultural Westernization in the First Half of the 20th Century

Abstract

The cultural Westernization is considered one of the detestable periods of the colonization of the Arabic Homeland, where it was eager to dedicate in the first half of the twentieth century. It aimed at securing the intellectual and cultural submission of the Arab World even after the military occupation had ended. Also, it was considered as a mean to continuing the control over Arabs’ countries fortunes. Moreover, this would make westernization able to deform the Muslims religious, moral and values legacy, and to isolate them away from their reality. Kuwait was not far from that kind of colonization, which targeted its Arabic language, religious values and teachings of Islam through the intervention of the British Authorities in the affairs of teaching. But Kuwaitis enjoyed the sufficient religious and national awareness. Kuwait's reformers and scholars succeeded in confronting that danger and the successive waves of Westernization as well. In view of the mentioned above, this study aims at knowing how far Kuwaitis were affected by the cultural westernization in the first half of twentieth century. This shall be accompanied with showing most important instances of western interventions to impose cultural westernization. Furthermore, it seeks showing the relationship between the British Consulate and the American Missionary in Kuwait as they had been working together for achieving that scheme. Finally, the consequent conclusion herein observes the results that the study attained.