The Anglican presence in the Middle East differs profoundly from that in other parts of the world. Scattered throughout the region there are Anglican congregations with British expatriate membership, but there are no substantial communities of British settlers. English-medium churches attract an international membership of diplomatic, business and aid-organisation personnel. It is largely transient. With the exception of the Sudan, the indigenous Anglican churches in the area are very small indeed. If Anglicanism has any importance in the Muslim heartlands, it is more in its interaction with the other Christian bodies, with Islam and with Judaism.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Anglican interest in the region grew out of the general missionary awakening. The French Revolution had had a profound effect on Christian relations with Judaism. It accelerated the process of Jewish emancipation within Europe. Able to participate fully in European civil society, most European Jews were nevertheless determined to retain their own religious identity. But some opted for conversion to the dominant religious culture. Many Christians, not least those most involved in the missionary movement, saw such conversions as the first fruits of a widespread conversion of the Jews. They linked both this and the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world to signs of the return of Jesus Christ and the inauguration of the millennium. In 1809 the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews was founded. Like many early missionary societies, it was an interdenominational Protestant organisation.