The book is not, as a distinguished American historian has been misled to believe: "a one-volume version of Shaikh Muhammad Ikram’s three-volume Urdu [Kausar] trilogy."Barbara D. Metcalf (2005). This may have been an echo of Abbott (1968, 233): "A. T. Embree has prepared an English edition of much of S.M. Ikram's three-volume Urdu study, Āb-i-Kauthar (Lahore, 1952), Mawj-i-Kauthar (Karachi, 1958), and Rūd-i-Kauthar (Karachi, n.d.), titled Muslim Civilization in India (New York, 1964)." Frances W. Pritchett (n.d.) states the correct position: "Muslim Civilization in India was edited by Ainslie T. Embree, ... He created it out of the author's 712-page History of Muslim Civilization in India and Pakistan (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1993 [1961]), by removing most of the notes and many specialized passages, leaving a kind of bare-bones account."
