The tragedy of our treatment of Dr Abdus Salam

[Goodperson]

EDITORIAL: 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? *

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...2-11-2006_pg3_1

 

[Awesome]

Horrible.

Personally I feel we should remove the distinction of calling a Pakistani either Muslim or non-Muslim. Anybody who wants to call themselves Muslims is okay. There deeds represent who they are to God. Mr. Bin Laden calls himself Muslim, but we don't need a special law to figure out he is not.

If Ahmedis want to call themselves Muslims and you don't like it... Tell them that you disagree with that assumption. Personally I do too. But do I want the state involved and see some good Ahmedis hurt over it? Never. They are Pakistanis and should enjoy all the civil liberties that I enjoy.

I don't know if you guys remember, Musharraf once tried to get this distinction removed in his early days. It was a gathering in front of many Mullahs and on live TV (PTV). Suddenly when he said that "we should consider that" a mullah shouted that Ahmedis can't be accepted in. Then there was a big ruckus and finally Musharraf had to end the near riot situation by giving a diplomatic statement that in the eyes of God whoever is a muslim shall only be considered as one.

Can someone dig up this incident? It goes way back to 1999 or 2000. We should move the President to raise this issue once again.

 

[Spring Onion]

Well Dr Salam was very much respected here and this has nothing to do with his believes.

again dailytimes the foreign funded newspaper its nothing new

 

[ali ahmad]

dr. salam is respected here in pakistan and an essay aout him is also included in high school physics book......

 

[ali ahmad]

as for as i rememer there was humors that musharaf is ahmadi....and there is a law in pakistan's constitution that no non muslim can ecome a p.m or presiden of pakistan.....and a person in the audience call mushraf to recite KALMA TAIBA.....and he did sooo......

 

[Janbaz]

The late Abdus Salam was a great man. Yes we as mainstream muslims have difference with Qadiyani's but we should not stereotype against them as of the fact they are our fellow country men.

 

[araz]

Brothers AsSalam o Alaikum.
We Have a tendency as a nation to become too rigid in our views and not to accept an0other view point. Does a the contribution of a pakistani become any less significant because of his religious or political view point? there are mischief mongers who would find faults with anybody and try and push him out of the limelight for his own petty gains. For each Abdul Salam and Faiz, I can assure you there are thousands of unsung heroes, whos work has been positively hindered and they have been harrangued to such an extent that they have left the country. It is indeed a sad state of affairs.
Remember that the issue of religious and Political beliefs has been the cause of so many misadventures in the Pakistani History that one takes it for granted . Is ethnicity not the reason of dismemberment of our country. I dont know what the answer to the problem is.However one needs to have a deep think.
Wa Salam
Araz

 

[ahf_nuke1]

I think every respect Dr. Salam ..anyone who is livin in Pakistan borned in pakistan is pakistani citizen ...no religion is goin to change that fact ...

 

[niaz]

Religious biogtry is the reason why I think Zia was the worst thing that ever happened to Pakistan. Regrettably, Zia is revered as a 'Mujahid of Islam' by a lot of Pakistanis and his henchman Hamid Gul, who never won any medal in gallantry, but it is considered a top notch military anlayst still acts as an advisor to MMA.

I met Prof Abdus Salaam when I went to UK and spent a year at the Institute of Nuclear Technology at Imperial College back in 1962. He was a professor at the Physics department next door. Despite already being famous, he found time for any Pakistani student who went to see him with any problem. Later he was also Scientific Advisor to Ayub Khan and along with Dr I H Usmani can be considered as a founding father of PAEC.

It is a great shame that we donot honour people as Pakistanis alone and I remember the great fuss made by JI under Mian Tufail Ahmad, when Zia honoured Prof Salaam for his Nobel Prize.

Just to show how bigotted some of our fellow nationals are and because a fellow member above wrote about Shia Doctors being singled out and killed.

I have read a book by Maulana Faurooqi, one of the leaders of Sepahe Sehaba Pakistan ( SSP), the book is called "Shias are Kaffirs or Muslims, you decide". In this book, as a proof that Shias should be killed ( Wajib ul Qatal), Maulana Farooqi mentions one name of some sunnni scholar; most of them unknown, each century since the advent Islam, who say that Shias should be killed. There must be at least a 1000 Isalmic scholars of note in each century, but quite conveniently the bigot Maulana doesnot mention them as they think otherwise; and only the single one who serves his purpose. Result is that Shia Doctors were singled out and killed just for being Shia and the killers think that they doing Allah's work. A personal friend, Shaukat Mirza, MD of PSO was also killed because he was a Shia.

This is the kind bigotry that some of the parties who form MMA follow. That is why Prof Abdus Salaam was treated so wretchedly. I repeat my favourite verse from Iqbal " Fitrat afraad say aghmaz to kar lay tee hai. Kabhi karti nahien millat kay Gunahon ko muaaf'.

 

[araz]

brother Niaz.
AsSalam o Alaikum. Thank you for a very nice post. I think that over the years Mullahs or Pseudo Mullahs have caused a great deal of harm to the Ummah in the name of Islam. I have seen my dear friend Mr. S9 cannot reveal name) having to escape Karachi as he was singled out for execution for being a Shia. i think this is shameful. However it is also a matter of the quality of people who exist in our political and educational institutions, who to safeguard their inefficiencies and consequent insecurities, initiate such cowardly acts. May Allah protect us from the evil of these wrongdoers. Ameen.
WaSalam
Araz

 

[KashifAsrar]

This is the biggest tragedy in pakistan, that muslims there are a divided lot in the name of Shia/Sunni. It looks that over a place where there is no enemy for the muslims, these muslims create enemies from with themselves! I have seen the most henious discussions on Shia/Sunni divide from pakistanis over different forums. I observed that, the people who participate in these discussions, are the one of the most hate-filled people, I ever imagined. these people eschew the type of hatred between Shia and Sunni as I see only in RSS cadres in India (Who are against any muslim in India; BJP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, VHP etc. etc. ).
It is really frightening that this hate was created by so called 'Mullahs' (Although I do not know any such Mullah in India). I realize then, that is propbably the reason why most Pakistani present here, jump from thier seats on the mere suggestion that pakistan should be a Shriat run state. This kind of Mullah-Gardi in Pakistan baffels me. Wallah.
According to Iqbal,
Har garg ko hai Barra-e-Masoom ki talaash
(Every wolf is in search of an innocent goat)

These kind of Mullahs (If one call them Mullah, which actually an insult to the word Mullah) behave just like a wolf on prowl and deserve a sound beating on the road, in front of the public.
Kashif

 

[afzalw]

Thats a shame we never learned any thing from our past treating people like rubbish

 

[Peaceful Civilian]

Even, religious bigotry is not only reason. Here people suffer a genetic, in-born trait to turn on all benefactors with a vengeance.

 

[Peaceful Civilian]

Self delete

 

[Anubis]

Abdus Salam's grave stone with the word Muslim erased from it: