Adil Najam
As reader zamanov has reminded us elsewhere, today marks Dr. Abdus Salam’s 10th death anniversary.
It should be a moment of deep reflection for all of us. He would have been as great a man as he was even if he did not won the Nobel Award in physics. But we would have conveniently forgotten him. That he did win the Nobel Award is a source of cosmetic and hollow pride for many Pakistanis. Cosmetic and hollow because it is also a source of visible unease. Even when we acknowledge that he was a great scientist (after all, the Nobel Committee thought so), we are uncomfortable acknowledging that he was a great man whose significance goes beyond his science.
As a brutally honest editorial in today’s Daily Times points out, “we are scared of honoring Dr. Salam.” We must not be.
The Daily Times editorial says all that needs to be said; it is worth reading, worth thinking about, and worth quoting in full:
The tragedy of our treatment of Dr Abdus Salam
Dr Abdus Salam (1926-1996) died ten years ago. He was the first Pakistani to get a Nobel Prize in 1979. But he might be the last if we continue to allow our state to evolve in a way that frightens the rest of the world. Our collective psyche runs more to accepted ‘wisdom’ than to scientific inquiry; and even if we were to display an uncharacteristic outcropping of individual genius the world may be so frightened of it that it might not give us our deserts.
We are scared of honouring Dr Salam because of our constitution which we have amended to declare his community as ‘non-Muslim’. When Dr Salam died in 1996 he had to be buried in Pakistan because he refused to give up his Pakistani nationality and acquire another that respected him more. But the Pakistani state was afraid of touching his dead body. He was therefore buried in Rabwa, the home town of his Ahmedi community whose name is also unacceptable to us and has been changed to Chenab Nagar by a state proclamation. But that was not the end of the story. After he was buried, the pious, law-abiding and constitution-loving people of Jhang, which is nearby, went over to Chenab Nagar to see if all had been done according to the constitutional provisions regarding the Ahmedi community to which he belonged.
And what did the constitution say? It said that the Ahmedis are not Muslims, that they may not call themselves Muslims, nor say the kalima or use any of the symbols of Islam. The original amendments to the constitution were passed by Z A Bhutto, a ‘liberal socialist-democrat’, and subsequent tightening of the law was done by the great patriot General Zia-ul Haq. Thus both the civilians and the khakis had connived in the great betrayal of Dr Salam.
After the great scientist was buried in Chenab Nagar, his tombstone said “Abdus Salam the First Muslim Nobel Laureate”. Needless to say, the police arrived with a magistrate and rubbed off the ‘Muslim’ part of the katba. Now the tombstone says: Abdus Salam the First Nobel Laureate. The magistrate remained unfazed by what he had done but Dr Salam’s grave is actually the tombstone of a Muslim culture that Pakistan had inherited from the founder of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. But ironies fly thick in Pakistan. In Jhang, for example, where Dr Salam grew up as a precocious child, the schools that he endowed with scholarships and grants now teach communal hatred rather than the love that he had in mind when he gave them his money.
Meanwhile, the Ahmedi community is under daily pressure and anyone with a twisted mind is free to persecute them.
Abdus Salam was born in Jhang in 1926. At the age of 14, he got the highest marks ever recorded for the Matriculation Examination in Punjab. The whole town turned out to welcome him. He won a scholarship to Government College, Lahore, and took his MA in 1946. In the same year he was awarded a scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he took a BA (honours) with a double First in mathematics and physics in 1949. In 1950 he received the Smith’s Prize from Cambridge University for the most outstanding pre-doctoral contribution to physics. He also obtained a PhD in theoretical physics at Cambridge; his thesis, published in 1951, contained fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics which had already gained him an international reputation.
In 1954 Dr Salam left his native country for a lectureship at Cambridge University. Before the Pakistani politicians apostatised him, he was a member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, a member of the Scientific Commission of Pakistan and Chief Scientific Adviser to the President from 1961 to 1974. Pakistan’s space research agency Suparco was created by him and it is only symbolic that a group of Shia workers of Suparco were put to death in Karachi in 2004 by sectarian terrorists. Like Dr Salam, a lot of gifted Shia doctors have had to leave Pakistan because of the state’s twisted policies.
Dr Abdus Salam got his Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979. It was a most embarrassing moment for General Zia who had “supplemented” the Second Amendment to the constitution with further comic disabilities against the Ahmedis. He had to welcome the great scientist and had to be seen with him on TV. Since the clerical part of his government was already bristling, he took care to clip those sections of Dr Salam’s speech where he had said the kalima or otherwise used an Islamic expression. It was Dr Salam’s good luck that one of the believers did not go to court under Zia’s own laws to get the country’s only Nobel laureate sent to prison for six months of rigorous imprisonment. Dr Salam then went to India where he was received with great fanfare. He had gone there to simply meet his primary school mathematics teacher who was still alive. When the two met, Dr Salam took off his Nobel medal and put it around the neck of his teacher.
Let us admit in a whisper that Pakistan did issue a stamp commemorating Dr Salam years ago lest the government come under pressure to remove it from circulation. It is also true that his alma mater, Government College Lahore, now a university, has named certain ancillary departments and academic sessions after him following a long period of obscurantist domination. But Pakistan needs to feel guilty about what it has done to the greatest scientist it ever produced in comparison to the lionisation of Dr AQ Khan who has brought ignominy and the label of “rogue state” to Pakistan by selling the country’s nuclear technology for personal gain. Can we redeem ourselves by doing something in Dr Salam’s memory on this 10th anniversary of his passing that would please his soul and cleanse ours?
Adnan Siddiqi,
[quote post="431"]Mashallah all of you are educated and have access to libraries and Internet, you guys could always read the sources rather making political statments right here. One can always read “Roohany Khazaen� and other books. It’s not a difficult task. Anyone who claimed to a prophet and start a new belief can’t be declared as Muslim.[/quote]
You claimed that you’ve read the book then it’s not a problem for you to point out where the objectionable phrase is occurred. I hope you’re not dodging my question.
To All,
[quote post="431"]For you MARIAM if you still don’t find any thing objectionable in Qadyanies.
http://www.khatm-e-nubuwwat.org/
[/quote]
Maybe it’s not a problem for some of you but due to this controversy I’ve seen people got killed and some of them were very close to my heart.
I don’t read sites whose whole purpose is just to defame others faith. Believe me Internet is full of Anti religious sites and some of them are very convincing but still I don’t give a damn to them. What use of a religion if it spread hatred instead of love and harmony.
[quote post="431"]I know they will surely say it is a false Propaganda against them. But just ask any of the Qadayani How Did There First GREAT SUPREME Leader died[/quote]
You tell me, I never heard anything which them anything less than a Muslim. BTW, since we are discussing others faith why some of Sunni and Shia sect Muslims consider each other Kafir?
Salam is gone. His contributions to the country and science will remain - and his name will live for ever. He will be a role model for the knowledge seekers and belittled by narrow minded. People who taught me included Jews, Christians and Hindus, and Muslims during early education. I am thankfull to all for I am what they imparted to me - knowledge, wisdom, and character.
Some of the posts on this site were a sad reflection of what we have unfortunately become.
I don’t want to comment on this post anymore because it has degenerated into a no-holds-barred religious fight. But I would like to say this much that anyone who mentions Salam and Sami Khan in the same breath can’t have an IQ more than the room temperature. (I don’t mean any offense to Sami Khan. He is a great singer. I like his voice and and also I knew him personally.)
Dr. Salam was like any other great man, a product of a society with limitations, and he worked within those theologically limited minds to create new theories and new solutions to a complex domain like physics.
I find two things very interesting about him a) He said he was inspired by the Quran to come up with that prize winning theory, pointing to his own orthodoxy and blind faith in the Holy book and b) The fact that despite being a victim of Pakistan’s McCarthyist era, he still was so devoted to his country and people, as denoted by his outward traditional demeanor.
After all is said and done, Dr. Salam was Pakistan’s Nobel. And no one can take that away.
May God rest his soul in peace.
Aisha Sarwari
[quote post="431"] holy prophet such as marrying an underage girl or that he promoted terrorism[/quote]
So tell me, do you agree with them or not?
Comparing mirza sahib with Prophet itself is sign of stupidity but since it’s coming from your side so I’m not surprised.
[quote post="431"]5 billion, considers holy prophet to be an impostor prophet and Islam a false religion and many believe Islam to be a religion.
[/quote]
Because those who talk crap about Islam belong to background of Judaism,Christianity,Hinduism,Aethism,Budhusm,agon istism,zoroastroanism etc etc and never claimed they belong to religion Islam or part of it.
[quote post="431"]When it happens please don’t cry blasphemy as you yourself have started it[/quote]
Somebody must redefine Blasphemy please?
[quote post="431"]They believe what they believe and we believe what we believe as long as everyone stays in their boundaries.[/quote]
Exactly! That’s why everyone who’s blaming to muslims for someone else sect SHOULD stay in boundaries rather pointing finger on us for someone else sins. We’re not pinching bags that every Tom,dick and harry comes and play with our belief. As far as What christians etc think about Islam , I’m sure noone of muslim gets scared rather feel insecure.
[quote post="431"]Otherwise, we’re doomed as a nation. Heck, the sooner the better I say.[/quote]
you live in dreams. We are already doomed,as a muslim that we offend our own religion and feel proud of it and as a nation offcourse that we feel ashamed that we live in a muslim state.
Just one more thing, in reference to this statement:
“Ignorance is not an excuse my friend! As I said earlier that every one can read the concerned material rather demonstrating mentall illness and infertility to blame mullahs or anyone else,”
you’re implying that people who differ in their views from yours are “mentally ill?” And the “blaming mullahs” (whatever that means) part just might stem from their religious sermons preaching the hatred and killing of Ahmaddiyas worldwide.
I seriously hope that many other Pakistanis don’t have a common viewpoint as well. Otherwise, we’re doomed as a nation. Heck, the sooner the better I say.
Ok Adnan Sahib, you Completely ignored what I said in that entire paragraph. Either that or you’re simply not able to comprehend the English language. I’m not going to continue arguing with you. Not because I have run out of arguments..I’ve got plenty..But because I don’t want to Hijack this thread and turn it into something it was not intended to be. The discussion was about Dr. Abdus Salam, a great man, subjected to horrible treatment by his Native Land. We must reflect. And Honour him, at least after his death. May Allah Bless his Muslim soul :)
[quote comment="12405"][quote comment="12093"]For you MARIAM if you still don’t find any thing objectionable in Qadyanies.
http://www.khatm-e-nubuwwat.org/
I know they will surely say it is a false Propaganda against them. But just ask any of the Qadayani How Did There First GREAT SUPREME Leader died[/quote]
I want to ask the same question from Asma.[/quote]
shoaib shafique, I am not clear what your questions is? Are you saying that you have objection to someone else’s beliefs? Is this something new? Or are you objection to someone’s First GREAT SUPREME Leader? This is not new either. Many non-Muslims say all sort of things regarding holy prophet such as marrying an underage girl or that he promoted terrorism? Should we take it seriously, or allow others to harass us on every street corner of this world or to diminish our rights irrespective of how strongly they believe what they believe?
Let’s be blunt. A vast majority of world population around 5 billion, considers holy prophet to be an impostor prophet and Islam a false religion and many believe Islam to be a religion that spreads terrorism. So what? They believe what they believe and we believe what we believe as long as everyone stays in their boundaries.
If however you wish to throw dirt on others then please remember that others have the same right to throw dirt on you. When it happens please don’t cry blasphemy as you yourself have started it.
I would appreciate if you could clarify the question?