This edition supersedes the second edition of Pakistan: A Country Study, published in 1983 under the editorship of Richard F. Nyrop. Like its predecessor, the present book is an attempt to treat in a compact and objective manner the dominant historical, social, economic, political, and national security aspects of contemporary Pakistan. Sources of information included scholarly books, journals, and monographs; official reports and documents of governments and international organizations; foreign and domestic newspapers and periodicals; and interviews with individuals with special competence in South Asian affairs. Relatively up-to-date economic data were available from several sources, but the sources were not always in agreement. Most demographic data should be viewed as well-informed estimates.

The transliteration of various words and phrases posed a problem. For many words of Arabic origin--such as Muslim, Quran, and zakat--the authors followed a modified version of the system adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names. In numerous instances, however, the authors adhered to the spelling used by the government and people of Pakistan. There is thus some variance in spellings: for example, the Prophet Muhammad, but Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Agha Mohammad Ayub Khan. The reader should also note that the term Khan, which appears with numerous names (for example, Ayub Khan, Ghaffar Khan, and Yahya Khan), is an honorific and is almost never a surname.

The body of the text reflects information available as of April 1994. Certain other portions of the text, however, have been updated. A bibliography appears at the end of the book.

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress