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Kuwait
Index
This edition of Persian Gulf States: Country
Studies
replaces the previous edition, published in 1984. Like its
predecessor, the present book attempts to treat in a
compact and
objective manner the dominant historical, social,
economic,
political, and national security aspects of the five
contemporary
states of the Persian Gulf covered in this
volume--Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Sources
of
information included scholarly books, journals, and
monographs;
official reports and documents of government and
international
organizations; and foreign and domestic newspapers and
periodicals. Available economic data for these countries
are not
always complete or may be inconsistent.
Chapter bibliographies appear at the end of the book;
brief
comments on some of the more valuable sources for further
reading
appear at the conclusion of each chapter. Measurements are
given
in the metric system; a conversion table is provided to
assist
those who are unfamiliar with the metric system (see
table 1,
Appendix). The Glossary provides brief definitions of
terms that
may be unfamiliar to the general reader, such as the use
of
amir/amirate, shaykh/shaykhdom, and Al/al.
The transliteration of Arabic words and phrases posed a
particular problem. For many of the words--such as
Muhammad,
Muslim, Quran, and shaykh--the authors followed a modified
version of the system adopted by the United States Board
on
Geographic Names and the Permanent Committee on Geographic
Names
for British Official Use, known as the BGN/PCGN system;
the
modification entails the omission of all diacritical
markings and
hyphens. In numerous instances, however, the names of
persons or
places are so well known by another spelling that to have
used
the BGN/PCGN system might have created confusion. The
reader will
find Mecca rather than Makkah, Oman rather then Uman, and
Doha
rather than Ad Dawhah. In addition, although the five
governments
officially reject the use of the term Persian
Gulf--as do
other Arab governments--and refer to that body of water as
the
Arabian Gulf, the authors followed the practice of the
United
States Board on Geographic Names by using Persian Gulf or
gulf.
The body of the text reflects information available as
of
January 1993. Certain other portions of the text, however,
have
been updated. The Introduction discusses significant
events that
have occurred since the completion of research; the
Country
Profiles include updated information as available; and the
Bibliography lists recently published sources thought to
be
particularly helpful to the reader.
Data as of January 1993
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