This post started with this video. A very, very brave bunch of guys making a satirical point on the current state of Pakistan. Needless to say, I loved the song.

There was a reference to a certain Abdus Salam in the video and how no one remembers him any more, which led me to Google and after 30 minutes or so of reading online I discovered a great man called Abdus Salam!

Abdus Salam was a physicist and Pakistan’s one and only Nobel Laureate. He was also the first Muslim Nobel Laureate in the sciences, although Pakistan doesn’t recognise him as a Muslim! Because he belongs to the Ahmadiyya sect of Muslims who do not believe that Muhammad was the last prophet, for which they are persecuted all over the world and especially in Pakistan.

His extra-ordinary journey from very humble beginnings in a small town in Pakistan to the Nobel Prize is awe-inspiring. So is his apparent ease in striding the two dissimilar worlds of science and religion. A devout Muslim,  anecdotes abound about his encounters with Bertrand Russell and Einstein and the resulting discussions on reason and faith. Though he saw both religion and science as essential to explaining the world around and inside of us, he did make it clear that “the validity of a scientific truth can be adjudicated only according to criteria internal to science and not by appeal to religious, metaphysical, or aesthetic considerations”. But his greatest qualities were his humility, his incessant efforts at creating opportunities for research for scientists from developing nations and his undying devotion to his roots.

His efforts led to the founding of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy (now called the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in his honour), under the aegis of the IAEA and now UNESCO. In his own words,

The Centre provides the possibility for scientists to remain in their own country for the bulk of the time, but come to the Centre to carry out research for three months or so. They meet people working in the same subject, learn new ideas and can return to their own country charged with a mission to change the image of science and technology in their own country.

Despite the attention and adulation from many parts of the world, he remained deeply committed to his own country, Pakistan, even after experiencing multiple betrayals and rejections from his countrymen. He belonged to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam which was declared a heretical sect and its followers non-Muslims, in 1974 by the Pakistani parliament. (Non-Muslims are second-class citizens in Pakistan, by law.) He resigned as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the President in protest and left Pakistan for good. But he never abandoned Pakistan in his heart and arrived in traditional ethnic garb to the Nobel ceremony in 1979 when he shared the Physics prize with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow. Much later, when Professor Salam wanted to run for the position of Director General of UNESCO, the Pakistan government refused to endorse his candidacy, which is a pre-requisite, despite support from several developing countries. Other countries, including Italy offered him a citizenship to run for the post but he refused – he never gave up his Pakistani citizenship. He also continued to support with money and resources scientific development and education in Pakistan, including donating his entire share of the Nobel prize money. But he has constantly been vilified and disparaged in Pakistan to the point of being accused of being an Indian spy and his contribution belittled and forgotten.

But his greatest legacy by far was his steadfast belief in the universal nature of Science. In a foreword to Professor Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy’s book Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and Battle for Rationality, he wrote:

“There is only one universal science, its problems and modalities are international and there is no such thing as Islamic science just as there is no Hindu science, no Jewish science, no Confucian science, nor Christian science.”

Further reading:
1. Wikipedia
2. The Abdus Salam Memorial Meeting – Tributes to Abdus Salam at The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
3. Biography at nobelprize.org
4. Abdus Salam microsite at ictp.it