Remembering Dr. Abdus Salam -by H. A. Khan
Editors note:
We received the following information from social network and would like to publish this. The information is about a documentary project on the great Pakistani muslim scientist, the late Professor Abdus Salam. We encourage all our readers to support this much needed endeavour.
The trailer for the film was released yesterday to coincide with Dr. Salam’s birthday.
The last frame of the trailer states, “The Abdus Salam docufilm is an independent production and the completion of this work depends entirely on your financial support. We have recently completed research and production. We need your support for post-production”.
The Pakistani state has shunned and vilified Dr. Salam. We, the people, have a moral obligation to celebrate the life and times and work of the greatest physicist this country has ever had. We can do so by contributing to the completion of the Abdus Salam Docufilm. Please spread the word.
Yestarday was the 87th birthday of the great legend and the only Nobel laureate Dr-Abdus Salam.I didn’t any see any thing on print or electronic media about highlighting and remembering the great work done by him in the field of physics.I feel myself much ashamed and unfortunate that just on the basis of his faith we condemn this great person for whom I have much respect and admiration.Only on Aaj tv in the programme bolta Pakistan Mr.Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javed discussed about him in brief.
Our generations should know the achievemanets of this great Pakistani legend in his field. Salam was a science advisor to the Government of Pakistan from 1960 to 1974, a position from which he played a major and influential role in Pakistan’s science infrastructure.[6][7] Salam was responsible for not only major development and contribution in theoretical and particle physics, but as well as promoting scientific research at maximum level in his country.[7] Salam was the founding director of Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) in Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).[8] As Science Advisor, Salam played an integral role in Pakistan’s development of peaceful use of nuclear energy, and directed the research on development of atomic bomb project of Pakistan in 1972;[9] for this, he is viewed as the “scientific father”[10][2] of this programme in the views of the scientists who researched under his scientific umbrella.[11][12][13] In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Pakistan Parliament passed a controversial parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya denomination as non-Islamic. Even after his death, Salam remained one of the most influential scientists in his country. In 1998, following the country’s nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of “Scientists of Pakistan”, to honour the services of Salam.[14]
Salam’s major and notable achievements include the Pati–Salam model, magnetic photon, vector meson, Grand Unified Theory, work on supersymmetry and, most importantly, electroweak theory, for which he was awarded the most prestigious award in Physics – the Nobel Prize.[5] Salam made a major contribution in Quantum Field Theory and advancement of Mathematics at Imperial College London. With his student, Riazuddin, Salam made important contributions to the modern theory on neutrinos, neutron stars and black holes, as well as the work on modernising the quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. As a teacher and science promoter, Salam is remembered as a founder and scientific father of mathematical and theoretical physics in Pakistan during his term as the chief scientific advisor to the president.[7][15] Salam heavily contributed to the rise of Pakistani physics to the Physics community in the world.[16][17] Even until his death, Salam continued to contribute to physics and tirelessly advocated for the development of science in Third-World countries.
In 1997, the scientists at ICPT commemorated Salam and renamed ICTP as “Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics“. Salam had advocated for development of Science in third world countries, and attended various seminars in different countries. Throughout the years, Salam served on a number of United Nations committees concerning science and technology in developing countries.[31] Salam also founded the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and was a leading figure in the creation of a number of international centres dedicated to the advancement of science and technology.[96]
During his visit at the Institute of Physics of Quaid-i-Azam University in 1979, Salam had explained after receiving his award: Physicists believed there are four fundamental forces of nature; the gravitational force, the weak and strong nuclear force, and the electromagnetic force.[97] Salam was a firm believer that “scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind,” and that developing nations needed to help themselves and invest in their own scientists to boost development and reduce the gap between the Global South and the Global North, thus contributing to a more peaceful world.[98]
Although Salam had departed from Pakistan, he did not terminate his connection to Pakistan.[99] Salam continued inviting Pakistan’s scientists to ICTP, and maintained a research programme for the Pakistani scientists.[100] Many prominent scientists, including Ghulam Murtaza, Riazuddin, Kamaluddin Ahmed, Faheem Hussain, Raziuddin Siddiqui, Munir Ahmad Khan, Ishfaq Ahmad, and I. H. Usmani, considered him as their mentor and a teacher.
I SALUTE THE TRUE LEGEND AS AN ADMIRER AND A FOLLOWER.
one of the greatest scientist of this era….one day Muslim world will recognize and feel proud of him…..
One was the son of a head clerk in the education department; the other, daughter of a small contractor, orphaned at 7, both from the Indo-Pak subcontinent won the Nobel Prize in 1979. Abdus Salam and Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (a.k.a Mother Teresa).
Prof Dr. Abdus Salam, the first and probably the last Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize, preferred to remain a Pakistani national all his life, whereas a scholar of his stature could have honored any country of the world by adopting its citizenship. He remained the citizen of a state which ensured that he be dishonored posthumously. In November 1996 when the great scientist was buried at Rabwah (renamed Chenab Nagar through a Punjab Assembly resolution passed in 1998)his tombstone read “Abdus Salam the First Muslim Nobel Laureate”. Needless to say, the police arrived with a magistrate and rubbed off the ‘Muslim’ part of the inscription. Now the tombstone says the nonsensical: Abdus Salam the First Nobel Laureate. Unfortunately the State, in this part of the world decides as to who is and who is not a Muslim.
The other recipient, the frail, short statured lady, looking after the leprous of Calcutta, who adopted the Indian nationality in 1948, was a catholic. Mother Teresa received a State burial. The gun carriage that carried Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru’s bodies’ was used to carry Mother Teresa to a service in Netaji Stadium. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets, for she was an internationally acclaimed Indian citizen and not an infidel.
When in 1952 Dr. Salam came to Government College Lahore as head of the Mathematics department, he was refused an official residence. When in an interview, he requested the Education Minister Sardar Abdul Hameed Dasti, to look into this problem; the Minister categorically told him that if the job did not suit him, he could leave. Later Professor Sirajuddin, the Principal asked him to take charge of the college football team, an assignment he always resented as it was against his temperament and sheer wastage of time for a person who would spend 14 hours a day in academic work at Cambridge. During Christmas holidays he was invited by Professor Wolfgang Pauli, the 1945 Nobel laureate in physics, who was visiting India, to come to Bombay. He went to India for a week and on his return was charge sheeted for not seeking prior approval before leaving. This shocked him as he was used to European freedom of movement. However, later the Director Public Instruction intervened and the period of his visit was treated as leave without pay.
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Dr. Salam came to Pakistan. In December 1979, on his arrival in Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad, he was received by junior army officers who were military secretaries to the provincial governors and the ‘President’. The convocation at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad summoned to bestow upon him the honorary doctorate of science was cancelled because of the warning from the students belonging to the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami to disrupt the function, and the venue was shifted to the hall of National Assembly. In Lahore, his lecture arranged to be held at the campus of the Punjab University, had to be moved to the senate hall in the city because certain groups had demonstrated earlier and threatened to murder Dr. Salam. The University of Punjab refused to honor him with a degree. The Government College did not even invite him to visit its precinct.
Although it was embarrassing for General Zia, he had to welcome the great scientist and had to be seen with him on TV. However, those sections of Dr. Salam’s speech were clipped where he had said the kalima or used an Islamic expression. It was Dr. Salam’s good luck that one of the believers did not go to the court under Zia’s own laws to get the country’s only Nobel laureate sent to prison for six months of rigorous imprisonment.
A year later in January 1981, when he was in India, five universities gave him honorary degrees, including the Guru Dev Nanak University of Amritsar where he delivered the convocation address on 25 January 1981 in Punjabi, and the university, on his request brought to Amritsar four of his old teachers who had taught him in Jhang and Lahore. The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, invited him to her residence, made coffee for him with her own hands, and sat on the carpet throughout the meeting near Salam’s feet saying that was her way of honoring a great guest. Later in his tour of several Latin American countries including Brazil, he was received everywhere at the airport by the head of the state. (K.K. Aziz, 2007)
In 1986, the Director Generalship of UNESCO fell vacant and nominations were solicited. Salam wanted to be considered and everyone was sure that he would be elected. But the rule was that a candidate must be nominated by his own country. Pakistan nominated Lt. General Yaqub Khan, a retired army officer. Both Britain and Italy offered to nominate Salam if he agreed to become their national. He refused. The Pakistani general received only one vote. A French member, when pressed by her Government to vote for the Pakistani candidate, resisted, protested and then resigned, saying “An Army General will run the UNESCO over my dead body” (K.K.Aziz, 2007).
Salam died, full of honors and laurels from across the world, on 21 November 1996, in Oxford. His brother, who lived in Lahore, asked the government if it would like to provide protocol on the arrival of the coffin. There was no response. He was buried in Rabwah, at the foot of his mother’s grave.
The scientist Dr. Salam had a vision. He wanted to bring about a change in the social and educational sectors of an impoverished society. He wanted to change the culture of backward areas like Jhang by creating opportunities for the downtrodden yet intelligent children of the area. He endowed the schools and madrasahs of Jhang with hefty grants and scholarships. He envisioned these to act as centers of learning, peace and harmony. Perhaps the late Dr. Salam wanted to begin with Jhang as a model district.
However, this was not to be. The self-destructive trends in our society patronized by the state of which Dr. Salam himself was a victim engulfed us. Jhang, today is the epicenter of sectarian violence in Pakistan. The militant organizations Sipah-e-Sahaba and its offshoot Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are centered here. According to the Jhang police, the Taliban and al-Qaeda network is also expanding in Jhang.
We never realized that the vacuum created by lack of education and enlightenment is always filled by ignorance and extremism. Can we still prioritize the power of discourse over the discourse of power? A proposition which Dr. Salam advocated throughout his life!
http://www.viewpointonline.net/abdus-salam.html
Hats off to Dear Taj for writing and sharing this valuabale information,we are a dead nation indeed and no need to give thousands examples in this regard.
May Allah reward him for his contribution to science.
Great scientest of the Muslim world in this era.
After ibn al-Haitham, the great physicist of middle ages, Dr Salam was the great scientist in a span of 1000 years. Dr Salam’s contribution to the world of science are recognized the world over, except in Pakistan. Read the book “Einstein wrote back” by Dr John Moffat, published in 2010, there is a chapter on Salam in this book. watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfKKxyQoYlc , dr Moffat remembers Salam
Salam Sahib never gave up Pakistani citizenship. He helped Pakistani students and researchers, I have personal experience. Thank you again Dr. Sahib!
Dear KK2, it will be much appreciated if you could share some of your personal experience with this Great Man.
I was at a research lab and at a stage my funding source dried up. I talked to a friend at ICTP narrating the situation. He conveyed to Salam Sahib in an open meeting, Salam Sahib instructed his deputy to act, the intervention ultimately led to resumption of the scholarship. A couple of weeks after the aforementioned meeting, Dr. Sahib again asked “what happened to the Pakistani student’s problem?”. At no stage he had asked about my religious leanings, he never knew me. I had honor of shaking hand with him when he visited Pakistan in 1979 after getting the Noble Prize. According to Prof. Sam Ting (another Noble Laureate), “he changed the way we viewed the world”. He will continue to be remembered as long as humanity seeks physics.
Thanks alot KK2 for sharing this substantial information.
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