Lesson Plans I'm concerned that a lot of important information is incorrect, left out or oversimplified. Here are some relevant and interesting avenues to pursue. 1. Names of countries; in the U.S., we often abbreviate the names-- Islamic State of Afghanistan Islamic Republic of Pakistan Islamic Republic of Iran Islamic Republic of Mauritania Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Syrian Arab Republic United Arab Emirates 2. Pakistan The name was developed by a group of students at Cambridge University who issued a pamphlet in 1933 called Now or Never. They came up with the term "Pakistan" as "composed of letters taken from the names of our homelands: that is, Punjab, Afghania [North-West Frontier Province], Kashmir, Iran , Sindh, Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Balochistan It means the land of the Paks, the spiritually pure and clean." Although the suffix "stan" means country in Hindi and Persian, the students were able to fit the names of homelands to make an appropriate country name. "Pakistan is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands - "Indian" and "Asian." That is, Punjab, Afghania (north west frontier province), Kashmir, Iran, Sindh (including Kachch and Kathiawar), Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. It means the land of the Paks - the spiritually pure and clean. It symbolises the religious beliefs and the ethnical stocks of our people; and it stands for all the territorial constituents of our original fatherland. 3. Flags --the United Nations flag (an Azimuthal Equidistant projection of the world centered at the North Pole showing an outline of the inhabited continents, in a circle of olive branches, adopted in 1947) --the Earth flag (from an Apollo 11 photograph of the planet from space, designed in 1969) --the peace symbol (upside-down semaphore signals of "N" and "D" for nuclear disarmament inside a circle, first used in 1958 for nonviolent demonstrations in England.) 4. Afghanistan has borders with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iran, China, and Pakistan. The first three were part of the former Soviet Union/USSR. Many central and south Asian states and regions end with the element 'stan, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Baluchistan, Kurdistan, and Turkistan. The 'stan is formed from the Iranian root *st', "to stand, stay," and means "place (where one stays), home, country." Iranian peoples have been the principal inhabitants of the geographical region occupied by these states for over a thousand years. The names are compounds of 'stan and the name of the people living there 5. The Al-Qaed network of Osama bin Laden has been reported to have connections in 40 countries. The Sept. 11 airplane hijackers were said to be from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen...it's not clear yet, but it is incorrect to think they are from Afghanistan. Bin Laden and his group belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. 6. Also, see the Silk Road, Saladin, the Sunni/Shia split in Islam, and Pakistan’s ongoing dispute with India over Kashmir. 7. Recommended reading: Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Counterpoint Press, 2000 (paper) September 28, 2001 --Compiled from various sources...  BACK