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?
Bilal Zuberi just posted a related post on his blog which included the text of Dr. Salam’s speech at the Nobel Banquest. I thought it was worth sharing here. I thought it was telling that despite everything he makes it a point to accept the award on behalf of Pakistan, and not just himself; and his pride in Urdu:
From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1979, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1980.
ATP Thank you for posting this piece and in a small way remembering a great scientist and patriot son of the soil. Since this post was about his contribution to science and how he was treated by the state, I think it’s pointless to argue about his beliefs. He did not win a Nobel prize for converting people to his beliefs (nor was that his intent) and he wanted Pakistan to benefit from his personage as a scientist!
The people who get their knickers all twisted up about his beliefs are of the same ilk who try to discredit Jinnah for his liberalism and always come up with something or the other to prove how these great personalities were non-Muslims or lesser believers. However misguided that may be it can be tolerated in the interest of free speech. But what a society cannot and should not deny is the genius of these great people who actually contributed something to this world and tried to improve the lives of Pakistanis in the face of great odds and obstacles.
No one is asking for Dr Abdus Salam to be declared the patron saint of orthodox Islam. His contribution and stature is in the world of science; his work ethic, his love for his country and his desire to improve the life of his countrymen should humble every single person who ever calls himself Pakistani. Let the state and humanity of Pakistan recognize him for that and let’s ensure that our children learn and never forget their true heroes.
Thank you for putting an interesting article and thank you shahid hussain for writing in detail about Mr Abdul Salam.
Saadia khan you missed the point. I saw this post first time very early in the morning,i read it and navigated away due to lack of Intrest on certain topic but I knew that some of loony leftist would standup and would blame to other community and MQ guy didn’t take much time to prove me right. I was like WTF.. could God create such an ignorant and extreemist invidual
for certain community that can’t make a read for certain issue?
Ignorance is not an excuse, everyone has an access to Internet and libraries and everyone could have access to books for any topic/religion in the world including the book “Roohani khazain” by Mirza. If a person after having so much luxuries is still not able to comprehend something and comes out to blame others then he should curse to his own mental infertility rather condemning others for his own weakness, therefore statments like “In my opnion i have doubt for certain thing” or “so called muslims” don’t hold water.
I repeat, I am least intrested what some xyz follows as long as he doesnt bug me. But whenever somene attack me[or my belief or anything associated with me], I would definately try to stop him. Secularist freedom doesn’t preach to poison someone else’s religion. Whatver happened with Salam was shameful and I equally agree. The reason why the constitution introduced some clause to declare them official non-muslims would have certain attributes[prolly the genuine reason was declarig a ‘false prophet’ in the name of Islam and this is something which was not done by any other Islamic sect] but yes i do feel it was a bit unfair with qadyanis only becasue there are other sects as well who preach their own words in the name of Islam. Either declare all to non-muslims or to none. I’m also against social boycott of qadyanis, atleast my family never boycotted any qadyani in life that’s why we have few qadyanis around in real life so there is no issue with me atleast to cope with qadyanis or Shias who are called kafirs by people of certain community.
There was no need to give reference of “no compulsion in religion in Islam”. I don’t care what’s your belief. My reply was certaintly to yet another absurd claim by MQ and I have right to speak when same Quran which you guys refers talks about “Amar Bil maroof”. If I had intention to reply against qadyanis or salam then I could be the first one to reply against
salam’s belief. still if someone considers me anti qadyani or anything then I don’t care.
MQ made this post another mullah bashing post instead of giving me lectures and being baised.
Speaking of giving rights to minority, bibi now even majority don’t have freedom of prayers. if this article by Jawed chaudhary is really true then all people who declare themselves muslims should mourn on this issue. At one side we make an issue about local temples while on other hand we close our eyes about our own matters. Hypocrisy rules!
I am glad that you have taken the initiative of reviving the memory of Dr. Abdus Salam. Dr. Salam is the greatest Scientific mind that the Indus Valley (present Pakistan) has ever produced. Such a brilliant son of the soil was indeed badly treated by his country. No matter, he was a Muslim or not, he was very religious person. He never hid his religion and never hesitated to talk of Islam in International Scientific Conferences. I remember, in the Summer of 1987, in Istambul (Turkey), during an International Physics Conference he started his Inaugral Speech with an Ayet from the Holy Book.
Basically, it does not matter if he was either Muslim or not. He had his Faith, but he himself was beyond any Faith because he was a good “Human Being� or a “Perfect Man� which we also translate as “mard-e-kaamil�.
I insist that for Dr. Salam the word “manâ€Â? be written “mardâ€Â? in Urdu and not “merde” as in “merde Haqâ€Â? for Zia-ul-Haq.
Ahsan
Isn’t it a great irony that Pakistan’s two true great heroes are not really owned by Pakistan? Salam, born and schooled in Jhang and Faiz in Sialkot. How much more native one could get? The former went on to receive the Nobel prize and world recognition and the latter won the Lenin Award (the Socialist world’s equivalent of the Nobel prize) and a place in millions of hearts the world over (barring the mullah’s, of course. Their hearts are made of something esle). Both of these great men never uttered an angry word, let alone hateful speech, against their country or their tormentors. Salam gave all his prize money to his school in Jhang, and Faiz, when in despair and in exile, simply would express his unhappiness, never anger, in lines like:
Aur kitnoN ka lahoo chaahi-aye aye arz-i- watan?
Kitni aahoN say kalaija tera thanda ho ga?
Here’s another blog posting that tells us a bit more about Dr. Salam.
humein bhi yaad kurr lena chaman mein jab bahar aayaey
Thank you Shahid Husain for posting this piece. My eyes were wet while reading it. Very Cathartic. Years ago when I was in grad school and used to flaunt my knowledge of economics I came across Shahzad Ahmad’s translation of Dr. Salam’s essays on various topics. Reading thru just the first couple of pages of his one essay made me realize how little I knew and how limited my perspective was. Bilal correctly points out that Salam was no less than Einstein.
May be ATP should mark this day in the calendar. It should be a day for collective recollection.