Yes I am an American born and raised.

Sorry, but I am not gong to sit here and argue about something I know is a fact.

Case Closed

You are definately entitled to your opinion. I prefer to go with the facts that I have presented. Too bad you cannot support what you "know is a fact" with documentation of some sort. I am sure if it was readily available, you would post it. I assume you want us all to take you on your word. So be it.

Ahmadiyya are considered heretical but to what extent I do not know as I haven't had the opportunity to study the subject. I've just been told to avoid cults like them.

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"Well done Dubya. You freakin' imbecile." - ViolaLee

They usually aren't considered to be Muslims by both Sunni and Shiite Muslims. That being said, the Ahmadiyya group is also divided into two groups. The main group which claims to have 200 million followers aren't suppose to hurt others, even if they are attacked first and face persecution. Jihad is not a phyisical act to them at all, but rather it is only an internal spiritual struggle.

These people aren't the Muslims that you should be worried about.

Well I sure am not one with the knowledge but it does appear that this "cult" sees Islam in a different light than most others. And what little I do know about (Hard Core "added by mlurp") Islam is it has no room for adjustments or sharing of ideas. As the last 4 UN Councils (by Arabs themselfs) On Arab Development Reports shows. Starting in 2002 and thru 2006.

http://www.fimam.org/Informe%20PNUD%...eteEnglish.pdf


Arab Human Development Report: UN Publications: Arab Human Development Report: Creating Opportunities for Future Generations
Creating Opportunities for Future Generations
This report, the first regional Human Development Report (HDR) for the Arab States, focuses on the people of the Arab world and the citizens of the 22 member states of the Arab League, from Maghreb to the Gulf.


The report shows that Arab countries have made significant strides in more than one area of human development in the last three decades. Life expectancy has increased by about 15 years, adult literacy has almost doubled and women's literacy has tripled. Nevertheless, the predominant characteristic of the current Arab reality seems to be the existence of deeply rooted shortcomings in the Arab institutional structure - freedom, empowerment of women, and knowledge.


No generation of young Arabs has been as large as today. For that reason, the report is especially mindful of the children of marginalized and oppressed Arabs, not excluding the Palestinian children. For that reason, the Report team has dedicated this first issue to "coming generations".


The report was prepared by a team of Arab scholars, and as such, is a look in the mirror. It is aimed at stimulating discussion and debate by policy-makers, practitioners and the general public on how to best tackle the most pressing challenges to improving human development across the region.

CONTENTS

Foreword
Overview: A future for all

Chapter 1: Human development: definition, concept and larger context
Chapter 2: The state of human development in the Arab region
Chapter 3: Building human capabilities: the basics - life, health, habitat
Chapter 4: Building human capabilities: education
Chapter 5: Using human capabilities: towards a knowledge society
Chapter 6: Using human capabilities: recapturing economic growth and reducing human poverty
Chapter 7: Liberating human capabilities: governance, human development and the Arab world
Chapter 8: Arab cooperation
Chapter 8: References; Statistical Annex; Tables

Or this: Middle East Report Online: The UN Arab Human Development Report: A Critique, by Mark LeVine

The UN Arab Human Development Report: A Critique

Mark LeVine

(Mark LeVine teaches history at the University of California-Irvine.)
July 26, 2002

Further Info

The UN Arab Human Development Report is accessible online.

Two recent issues of Middle East Report, "Behind the Ballot Box" (Winter 1998) and "Reform or Reaction?" (Spring 1999) examine the Arab world's dilemmas of political and economic development in depth. Select articles are accessible online. To order individual copies of Middle East Report or to subscribe, visit MERIP's home page.

With great fanfare and evident satisfaction, the UN Development Program and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development in June released the "Arab Human Development Report 2002" (AHDR). The Report, authored by a team of Arab scholars and policymakers with an advisory committee of "well-known Arabs in international public life," is the first UN Human Development Report devoted to a single region. Its release in Cairo was accompanied by a London press conference which received significant attention in the Western media.

The New York Times featured an article, an editorial and a Thomas Friedman column, all applauding the Report's "bluntness" and "brutal honesty" in analyzing what, to the paper, remains the only "substantially unchanged" region of the world. The Times coverage commended the AHDR as a hopeful first step toward "reclaiming [the Arab world's] future." As if to further emphasize the Report's radical credentials, one of its lead authors explained to the Washington Post that while the AHDR aims to start a dialogue in the Arab world, "it won't make many friends there."

No doubt many members of the Arab elite would be unfriendly to reforms that actually benefited the bulk of the population. But the Report's avoidance of the crucial issues of money and power ultimately lessens its value as a tool for achieving its stated goal: a "new social contract in which a synergy is generated between a revitalized and efficient government, a dynamic and socially responsible private sector, and a powerful and truly grassroots civil society." Such a vision is certainly laudable in the abstract, but under present circumstances it can hardly be realized in the US or France, let alone Syria or Morocco.

IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION

The Report partly lives up to its media billing by, in its words, detailing the "deeply rooted shortcomings of Arab institutional structures" that hold back human development in the era of globalization. Pointing to the "freedom deficit," gender inequality, low levels of health care, education and information technology usage, and high unemployment, the AHDR authors call for urgent reforms lest the Arab world lag further behind the pace of global change. The authors warn that "while most of the rest of the world is coming together in larger groupings, Arab countries continue to face the outside world, and the challenges posed by the region itself, individually and alone." To overcome this isolation the Report calls for a "holistic development" strategy for reaching the new social contract.

Certainly, the AHDR marks an important contribution to the growing critiques of market-oriented neoliberal development as preached by the World Bank and IMF. Its methodology is based on an expanded version of the Human Development Index designed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. During the 1990s, Sen's Index revolutionized debate about "development," which previously was measured only through purely economic indicators, by gathering statistics measuring "human development" -- life expectancy, literacy, schooling and per capita real GDP -- to achieve a more complete picture of poverty, growth and inequality. The AHDR authors round out Sen's Index, adding data on life-long knowledge acquisition, especially regarding information technology, women's access to societal power and "human freedom."

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Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

For the full read use the link provided.

Arab States: Arab Human Development Report Launch


06 December 2006
Arab Human Development Report Launch

Women in the Arab world are not realizing their full potential and are still denied equality of opportunity, says the Arab Human Development Report 2005: Toward the rise of women in the Arab world, arguing that this represents not just a problem for women, but a barrier to progress and prosperity in Arab societies as a whole.

The Report (selected parts of which are available online at http://rbas.undp.org/ahdr2005.shtml) commends some Arab states for “significant, progressive changes” in addressing the fundamental gender biases prevalent in the region. Yet the authors cite a range of obstacles to equitable development, from cosmetic reforms with little real effect to violent conflict, foreign occupations and terrorism, which cast a shadow over the tantalizing hints of progress glimpsed in the Report’s pages.

In 2002, the first Arab Human Development Report identified women’s disempowerment as one of three critical deficits crippling Arab nations in their quest to return to the first rank of world leaders of commerce, learning and culture. Now, four years later, the unequivocal necessity of securing for Arab women a fair chance to thrive has reached primacy as a precondition for development.

“Human development requires more than economic growth alone. The fight against poverty is not a campaign of charity - it is a mission of empowerment. This is especially true as regards women, given that, of the world’s one billion poorest people, three-fifths are women and girls. Full participation and empowerment of women, as citizens, as producers, as mothers and sisters, will be a source of strength for Arab Nations and will allow the Arab World to reach greater prosperity, greater influence and higher levels of human development,” said United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Kemal Derviş. UNDP sponsored the Report.

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Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

That they do, but once again, they are not the ones that you should be worrying about.

So I guess the retraining of 40,000 Saudi clerics to be more accepting and tolerant isn't an adjustment then? Or the re-writing of religious hadith canon in Turkey isn't an adjustment? or Arab unity talks (despite the current political tensions) isn't a sharing of ideas?

I found your comment to be in poor taste. Just because progress doesn't always happen as quickly as you would like it to, doesn't mean that it doesn't happen at all. I think that we often forget just how long it took the west to evolve into what we are today.

speeches. Use the right center where it says Launch Speeches in English just under the Icon. Then use the left hand side bar to go to each time frame to see just how much is done and what is still needed to be done. While some is critical of Israel don't stop there. After all these reports are prepared by Arabs, and the importances of the facts have two sides of the story. Only one is given here. The report is about Arab Development in the 21st Century so don't get hung up on one point, please!
Please ues thelink so you can read the speech.......... Where all the info/data is at. Below is just a cover page.

This is what to link to after on site:> Launch Speeches in English
Mrs. Amat ِAl-Alim Alsoswa: Arab States

The rise of women in Arab countries goes beyond redressing historical injustices against them and ensuring their equitable treatment - notwithstanding that both are due obligations for Arab societies. Indeed, the advancement of women is a pre-requisite for a comprehensive Arab renaissance.

Arab countries have undoubtedly attained significant achievements in the advancement of women, but the ultimate objectives of this endeavour, as conceptualised in the Arab Human Development Reports, require further effort. Much more remains to be accomplished by way of enabling the equitable acquisition and utilisation of human capabilities and the exercise of human rights, before women’s advancement can be complete. Since the status of women in the Arab world is a culmination of the complex – and often problematic - interaction of cultural, social, economic and political factors, there are many impediments to this process in the region. Nevertheless, Arab women have managed to attain outstanding achievements in diverse fields of human activity.

Societal reform aimed at enabling the rise of women, in line with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), is envisioned as one of the two wings of the bird symbolising the rise of women in the Arab world. A bird, however, needs two wings to fly. The other wing would be a wide-ranging and effective movement in Arab civil society that engages both women and their male supporters in steadily extending and consolidating targeted societal reform initiatives on the one hand, and on the other, empowering women - and the society at large - to benefit from them.

In particular, the report calls for the adoption of time-bound affirmative action, tailored to the specificities of each Arab society, in order to expand the participation of women in all fields of human activity. This is considered imperative to dismantle the structures of centuries of discrimination.

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Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

And I agree with your last statement myself..... Maybe you mis read my point.
Look I am not trying to put down anyone I want to get from here to the causes of why a once thriving location in the world with a very rich history and should be far advanced of the Western Countries hasn't.
I value all human life. But if it upsets you then it is your problem not mine. I can't please everyone all the time as you can't either. And in no way was I trying to deflame anyone, period. You believe what you like but this is the truth.
But to correct I added "Hard Core" to the point I was trying to make. And say sorry if it upset you, which I mean!

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Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

Whether you meant it to be or not, your comment was disreputable, simply making the claim that Islam can't change at all nor can Muslims share ideas is silly.

You want to know what can be done? Stop with stuff like that. I understand that you weren't trying to be offensive, but the truth is that comments like that are and have a big impact on our relations with Muslims. Learn more about the other side of Islam. Learn more about the mainstream. For example this thread was based around a fringe cult which you deemed dangerous (though they aren't).

One of the largest problems that Muslims have with the west is our depictions of them and how we depict Islam. You can criticize Islam if you want, but I suggest that you learn more about it before doing so.