Author's Note: I would like to thank Allan Hill, Huda Zuryck, Atef Khalifa, Peter Doad, Samir Khalaf, Serim Timur, and the IJMES reviewer for helpful, critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper which was published in J. Aliman, ed., Women's Status and Fertility in the Muslim World, New York: Praeger, 1978, pp. 3–32.

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² The countries discussed in this article are listed in Table 1. Generally, the area under consideration, which we refer to as the Middle East and North Africa, corresponds to the geographical area from Morocco in the west to Iran in the east.

³ For a review of the situation in the region only a few years ago see Shafi, A. M. N. El, “Administrative and other problems of data collection in North Africa and West Asian Arabic speaking countries.” International Population Conference, London, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 286–293.Google Scholar See also George, Sabagh, “The demography of the Middle East,” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, vol.4, No.2, 05 1970, pp. 1–9 and “Civil registration and vital statistics in selected countries in the Middle East,” Population Bulletin of the UN Economic and Social Office in Beirut, No. 2, 01 1972, pp.13–19.Google Scholar An indication of how demographic knowledge is improving dramatically in recent years is found in Levels and Trends of Fertility and Mortality in Selected Arab Countries of West Asia, Amman, , Jordan, , The Population Studies Programme, 1980.Google Scholar

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⁵ Notes 2 and 3 of the “1975 World Population Data Sheet,” Population Reference Bureau, Washington. The crude death rate (CDR), the crude birth rate (CBR) and infant mortality rates are given per 1,000 throughout the text.

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¹⁷ Several demographic factors, such as age structure and life expectancy, which have effects on CBR, CDR and growth rate will generally not be dealt with in this paper since satisfactory data are unavailable for most of the countries of the region. For a discussion of these factors see Tomas, Frejka, The Future of Population Growth, New York: John Wiley, 1973, Chapter 1;Google Scholar and Ansley, J. Coale, “Birth rates, death rates, and rates of growth in human population,” in Mindel, C. Sheps and Jeanne, Clare Ridley, eds., Public Health and Population Change, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1965, pp. 242–265.Google Scholar

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