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?
Shabaz,
[quote post=”431″]I have little doubt that the beliefs of Qadianies are false enough and preposterous enough to declare them non-Muslims.[/quote]
Don’t you think this is part of the problem i.e. citizens taking it upon themselves to declare others Muslim or non-Muslim? Don’t you think anyone who calls himself/herself Muslim should be considered one for all intents and purposes? Surely we can leave the intricacies to be worked out between Man and God.
As far as Dr. Salam is concerned, I am hopeful that in the pursuit of “enlightened moderation” , the Govt may yet embrace and celebrate him.
[quote comment=”11705″]mullahs had caused a huge riot in lahore over the ahmedi issue in early 50’s but the government stood firm against them. [/quote]
But this was not without its consequences. The riot caused the first marshal law in Pakistan which gave the first taste of power to the army even if it was done with the good intention of maintaining peace. So thank you Mullahs for brining the “jin” of military out in the first place.
I think he was given the knighthood in 1989 (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British _Empire) but due to not accepting British citizen it is honorary and he can not use the word “Sir”, which is one more word apart from word “Muslim” that can not go on his grave.
Not to start another war but I am wondering why Pakistanis are/were so proud of A.Q. Khan. He is considered a hero because he helped Pakistan develop a nuclear weapons program, which isn’t something to be proud of. The only purpose of nuclear weapons is to eradicate large amounts of humanity. I won’t bother mentioning other effects of nuclear weapons on environment etc. I guess nationalism is more important to many Pakistanis than humanism. Aside from that, he stole the technology to do it and then brought even more shame to Pakistan by selling nuclear technology to others for personal gain. Brilliant!! We should have more heros like him.
Shahid Husain,
A great story! Thanks for posting it. Many of us didn’t know all these things about this great son of Pakistan. Now we do.
issue is not whether qadianis are muslims but instead whether the government should be in the business of deciding which sect is muslim and which sect is not. i would argue that we would have been better off had the government not stuck its nose in this messy affair because for following reason:
the second amendment i.e. the amendment which declared qadianis as non-muslims set an extremely dangerous precedence. the amendment was essentially acceptance by the government that going forward it would play a role in enforcing laws made with the intent of upholding religious norms as defined by narrow segment of the clergy. up until this point i.e. before the second amendment, government had resisted all attempts by the mullahs to shove their values down the throat of the awam. mullahs had caused a huge riot in lahore over the ahmedi issue in early 50’s but the government stood firm against them. similarly mullahs puffed and brayed when govt introduced women’s right legislation in the sixties but the government told mullahs to buzz off. banning of sharab was another demand of the mullah that was resisted. and as the result of 1971 elections indicated govt was justified in taking a tough line against the mullahs because the awam was not buying what mullahs were selling.
yet despite mullah’s lack of support within the awam, bhutto chose to play ball with them thereby setting on a path for his own destruction. the second amendment caused mullahs to smell blood - gave energy and impetus to the whole tubqa. mullahs realised that if they upped the ante, govts going forward would bow down before them. it was the mullahs who drove the anti-bhutto agitation after the 76 elections. to placate the mullahs bhutto went on an islamisation drive result of which was banning of sharab and declaration of jumma as day of sabbath.
khai’r whats done is done. i dont think much purpose will be served in opening up ahmedi debate because issue only impacts a very tiny segment of the population and mullahs would have another reason for making our lives more difficult. ahmedi issue also points out the danger to our society if we have govt without checks and balances. give mullahs an inch and they will take a mile. no better example of this than iran.
Abdus Salam was a giant among the world’s scientists of his time and acknowledged everywhere as such. At Imperial College around 1970-72, I once saw him dining in the students cafeteria, and to my surprise even the English students of engineering instantly recognised him and spoke of him with respect.
An earlier memory is reading a series of articles he wrote in the Sunday “Dawn” in the early 1960’s on the state of particle physics at the time. So far as I’m concerned he was an early role model and his religion didn’t matter at all.
The mystic scientist
Zainab Mahmood
The story of the peasant from Jhang who became one of the finest scientists the world has known
In 1925, a peasant from Jhang had a prophetic dream: in response to his prayers, an infant was put in his lap; he inquired after his name and was told it was Abdus Salam. On Friday, January 29, 1926, a son was born to him and he duly named him Abdus Salam. A few years later, in another dream he saw Salam rapidly climbing a tall tree. When he cautioned him, Salam replied, “Father don’t worry I know what I’m doing,” and continued to climb until he was lost from sight. These visions were perhaps an indication of the extraordinary life that the child was destined to lead.
Salam’s powers of comprehension astonished his parents. As a toddler when his mother narrated bedtime stories, he retained every word and whenever she repeated a story he interrupted by saying “I already know it”. At six he was admitted straight into class four. At just 12 he sat for his matriculation exam and stood first in Punjab University, breaking all previous records.
Salam pursued a bachelor’s degree at Government College, Lahore, where he became editor of Ravi the college magazine, and president of the student’s union and debating society. In his fourth year during a lecture on Srinivas Ramanujan’s mathematical equations, Salam worked out simpler and shorter solutions, which had defied many professors. He went on to set new records in BA and MA in Punjab University, some of which still stand. Salam applied for an undergraduate programme in the mathematics Tripos at Cambridge. His father was unable to finance his studies abroad. Fortunately Sir Chotoo Ram (the revenue minister of the Punjab), himself the son of a peasant, arranged that funds collected for the war effort be used to provide scholarships for bright sons of peasants.
At Cambridge, Salam realised that his view of the world was fairly limited; referring to Rumi’s poem, he called himself “the frog from the well”. There he read voraciously about Islamic mysticism and philosophy, political and religious history, social sciences and the achievements of Muslim scholars, Sufis and scientists. This knowledge not only helped him achieve success in his chosen field, but also made him a well-rounded human being with a strong sense of history and spirituality. After completing his mathematics tripos degree early (with a double first, earning him the prestigious title of “wrangler”), he completed a three year physics degree in one year. Due to the exceptional standard of his theoretical papers, the examiners did not even ask for his practical results, and simply awarded him a first class degree. One of his professors, Sir Fred Hail, said about him: “I found it less of a strain to tackle hard problems with Salam than to be asked easier things by other chaps. With them you had to roll two stones up the hill, one was the problem, the second making them understand, with Salam there was one stone, and he would be doing a fair amount of the pushing.”
Salam completed his PhD in theoretical physics at Cambridge in 1952. Despite being offered a fellowship he returned to Pakistan to teach at Government College. Professor Kemmer, his research supervisor from Cambridge, eventually persuaded him to return to lecture at Cambridge: “I know very well that his strong sense of duty to his country is making it hard for him to decide to accept the post offered. If he does I feel in a few years he will become one of those from whom advanced students from all over the world would learn and he would be capable of establishing his own school of theoretical physics.” This proved prophetic.
In 1957 Salam became Imperial College London’s youngest professor ever. Here Salam, who had started out as a simple peasant, not even seeing an electric light bulb until he was sixteen, interacted with some of the greatest minds of his generation such as Bertrand Russell, Einstein, Openheimer, and Wolfgang Pauli. During one discussion Russell stated how he was vehemently opposed to God’s existence; Salam responded by saying: “without belief in God man is prone to many basic defects and history shows that those who do believe in God are able to sacrifice more and do better for the mankind in comparison to non-believers.” In his first meeting with Einstein, they discussed religion, and Dr Salam explained the Islamic concept of tauheed . They ultimately developed a close friendship.
Dr Salam’s spirituality and interest in Sufism distinguished him from most other great scientists. He began his first ever lecture at Imperial College by reciting a Quranic verse. His student Professor Duff recalls that his lectures were mesmerising: “there was always an element of eastern mysticism in his ideas that left you wondering how to fathom his genius.” Dr Salam would explain his scientific endeavours were inspired by the concepts of Ptolemy, Bruno and Galileo who dared to question and discover the mechanisms of the universe. He pointed out that a scientist has many facets, such as that of a Sufi, an artist and explorer, and he relies on such traditions to advance his scientific knowledge.
As advisor to General Ayub Khan, Dr Salam was instrumental in the formation of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Dr Ishfaq (President, PAEC 1998) recalls, “Dr Salam was responsible for sending about 500 physicists, mathematicians and scientists from Pakistan, for PhDs to the best institutions in UK and USA”. He worked tirelessly towards establishing a scientific platform in Pakistan. He spoke on problems afflicting Pakistan and suggested practical guidelines on how to tackle poverty and illiteracy in the third world at the All Pakistan Science Conference in Dhaka (1961). He urged citizens and the government to pay more attention to the scientific sector. He said poverty could be eradicated in one generation in Pakistan if the entire country made a firm commitment and he quoted from the Quran for inspiration: “God does not change the condition of a nation until it does not make an effort to change itself.”
He was a force behind the establishment of PINSTECH a centre for nuclear research, near Islamabad and SUPARCO in Karachi. He worked hard to find a solution for water-logging and salinity, which was a big problem for Pakistan’s agriculture. He wrote several papers on this subject, which were presented in the US House of Representatives. On his request, the American president John F Kennedy sent a team of experts to Pakistani who were able to save millions of acres of land.
Dr Salam worked day and night towards the establishment of an institute for physics. Yet, as is now well-known, Pakistan was uninterested: the then finance minister, Mohammed Shoaib, advised Ayub Khan that “Dr Salam wants to build a 5-star hotel for scientists”. Defeated, Abdus Salam approached several European countries instead. Finally the centre, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) was established in Italy in 1964. He served as director there for 30 years, and so a bridge of science was created between the developed and third world countries. As the science writer Robert Walgate said about Dr Salam, “he is one man without time, strung across two worlds and two problems; it is a loss to the world that he cannot have two lives.”
In 1979, Dr Salam won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on the grand unification theory. This theory was inspired by his spiritual belief that all forces emanate from a single source. The hours he spent conducting scientific research at his home, would be against the backdrop of recorded naats and talawat recitation of the Quran. At the award-ceremony he arrived wearing his national dress – sherwani, khussa and pagri – and began his acceptance speech with a recitation from the Quran: “No incongruity will you see in the creation of God. Then look again, do you see any flaw? Look again and again and your sight will return confused and fatigued having seen no incongruity.”
After winning the Nobel Prize, Salam visited his homeland. On one occasion he was en route with Dr Usmani and requested they drive to Government College. Dr Usmani told him that as it was during the vacation no one would be around. Dr Salam replied, “The person I want to meet will certainly be there.” As the car approached a group of workers in the college, Dr Salam got out, shook hands and embraced one of them. Surprised, Dr Usmani asked him about the identity of this man, to which Dr Salam replied, “This gentleman is Saida, a mess servant at New Hostel, who used to lock my hostel room from outside during the exams, and gave me food and supplies through the window.”
Dr Salam never forgot all those people who had, in some way, aided him throughout his life. When he was lecturer at Cambridge, he regularly sent money to his retired and impoverished teachers in Jhang. He held all his teachers in the highest of esteem and when he made an official visit to India, he insisted that all his Hindu and Sikh teachers who had migrated to India should be invited to all functions arranged in his honour. Dr Salam won 274 awards, degrees and prizes during his life, most of which carried substantial cash rewards. He used all his prize money to create a scholarship fund for deserving students as well as to aid impoverished people. While visiting India he was treated as a hero. Indira Gandhi was so in awe of him that she refused to sit at the same level as Dr Salam, instead sitting beside him on the floor. When students in India asked what changes the Nobel had brought his life, he replied: “the biggest change is that now I can meet all those people that I wanted to and with their help and God’s kindness I am able to help many aspiring scientists from the third world. The Nobel prize does not mean anything more to me.”
Once a journalist asked him how he felt that because of his extraordinary achievements, his small village Jhang, previously famous for the Heer folktale, was now known as the home of one of the greatest scientific minds of this century. Salam answered with extreme humility and wit, saying, “there are over 325 Nobel laureates in the world, but there is only one Heer.”
In 1988 he was invited to speak at the Faiz Memorial Lecture in Lahore. The contents of his speech elucidate the extent of his humility and diffidence. He confessed that he felt he was far a far lesser man than the gifted poet Faiz, who had lived in a world of love and beauty which enriched all around him, while he (Salam) was an inhabitant of the dry and colourless world of atoms. He remarked that one-eighth of the Quran summons all believers to think, to question and to harness the forces of nature for the benefit of mankind. He felt Faiz was an extraordinary man who took on this challenge, as should all believers. He showed how spiritual poetry and science were routes to the same destination and how the quest to unfold God’s mysteries, fuelled both the scientist and the poet. Sadly, he said, another similarity which drew him and Faiz together was that they were considered persona non grata by their own country.
In the latter part of his life, which he mostly spent in England, when he was asked why he was hesitant to come to Pakistan, he gave an honest response by saying that it was Pakistan that was hesitant to receive him. Dr Salam was offered citizenship from several countries, including Jordan and Kuwait, which even offered to nominate him as director-general of UNESCO. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to him and said “come on your terms and we will accept”. Even when the British government informed him that the Queen wished to grant him a knighthood he politely declined as the title of KBE can only be granted to British nationals. Dr Salam remained a citizen of Pakistan and selflessly fought many battles for his country.
Munir Ahmed Khan, formerly chairman of the PAEC, aptly eulogised Dr Salam in November 1997, saying: “we Pakistanis may chose to ignore Dr Salam but the world at large will always remember him.” In 1979, Jamiluddin Aali, a renowned journalist, wrote a newspaper article once titled “Two failed heroes of the east are celebrated universally”, referring to Mother Teresa and Dr Salam. Mother Teresa is now on the fast track to sainthood. While memories of Dr Abdus Salam are honoured by many around the world, in his own country they are even today buried under prejudice and disregard, erased from textbooks and mainstream publications. The loss is surely ours.