For
Dr. Abdus Salam, his work as a scientist was entirely in obedience to the
message of the Quran, and the injunctions of the Holy Prophet. He would say,
“The Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah’s created laws of
nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of
his design is a bounty and a grace for which I am my thanks with a humble
heart”. He was referring, of course to the recent advances in the Theory of
Relativity, and Quantum Theory, which give us a fresh insight into
creation.
During
his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, he quoted from the Quran; “Thou seest
not in the creation of the All-Merciful any imperfection. Return thy gaze, seest
thou any fissure? Then return thy gaze again and again. Thy gaze comes back to
you dazzled, aweary.” – Asif
Merchant
The First Muslim Nobel Laureate
By
Asif Merchant
Dr.
Abdus Salam died in Oxford, England on 21 November 1996. He was buried in
Bahisht Maqbara in the town of Rabwar. The epitaph on his grave read -
‘FIRST MUSLIM NOBEL LAUREATE’. Two years later, the Government of
Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp for him. Even then, on the orders of a
local magistrate, the word ‘ MUSLIM ’ was removed from his grave. Now the epitah
reads -
‘FIRST NOBEL LAUREATE’.
Such is the wisdom of those in authority. 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
Muhammed Ali Jinnah.
For
Dr. Abdus Salam, his work as a scientist was entirely in obedience to the
message of the Quran, and the injunctions of the Holy Prophet. He would say,
“The Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah’s created laws of
nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of
his design is a bounty and a grace for which I am my thanks with a humble
heart”. He was referring, of course to the recent advances in the Theory of
Relativity, and Quantum Theory, which give us a fresh insight into
creation.
During
his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, he quoted from the Quran; “Thou seest
not in the creation of the All-Merciful any imperfection. Return thy gaze, seest
thou any fissure? Then return thy gaze again and again. Thy gaze comes back to
you dazzled, aweary.”
Then
he said, “This in effect is the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the
more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our
gaze”.
For
him, spreading the message of the Holy Quran implied spreading the scientific
spirit. Whatever money he received from the numerous awards he received, was
spent on encouraging young scientists in the furtherance of their careers. So,
he was responsible for sending about five hundred physicists from Pakistan to
the best institutions in the U.K. and the U.S.A. for their Ph.D. He also set up
five Superior Science Colleges in Pakistan.
In
1974 the Parliament of Pakistan declared Ahmediyyas to be non-Muslim. Dr. Abdus
Salam left Pakistan in protest, and went to London. Ten years earlier, he had
founded The International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. (I C
T P ). Now he spent most of his time in research there. He instituted a unique
scheme called Associateships, which allowed deserving young Physicists to spend
their vacations in the invigorating atmosphere at the ICTP in close touch with
their peers in research and with the leaders in their own fields, returning to
their own countries after three months refreshed and recharged. Money from his
awards was used in setting up a fund for young Pakistani Physicists to visit the
ICPT and take advantage of this scheme
He
believed that scientific thought was the common heritage of all mankind, but his
repeated pleas to Islamic countries to contribute just 1% of their export
earnings towards a research fund went unheeded.
In
a speech at UNESCO House, he declared, “As a scientist, the Quran speaks to me
in that it emphasizes reflection on the Laws of Nature with examples drawn from
cosmology, physics, biology, medicine as signs for all men. Seven hundred and
fifty verses of the Quran, exhort believers to study Nature, to reflect, to make
the best use of reason in their search for the ultimate and to make acquiring of
knowledge and scientific comprehension,
part of the community’s life. The Holy Prophet of Islam emphasized that the
quest for knowledge and science is obligatory upon every Muslim man and woman.
He enjoined his followers to seek knowledge even if they had to travel to China
in its search.”
His
own life exemplified the transformation education can make in a life. Dr. Salam
was born in a poor, but educated family in a small place called Jhang. His first
glimpse of an electric bulb was when he went to college in Lahore. Though his
brilliant intellect was obvious to all who knew him, it would not have been
possible for the young Salam to go to Cambridge except for the scholarship given
by Sir Chhotu Ram, the then Revenue Minister of Punjab.
Dr.
Salam devoted his life to promote peace and bridge the gap between developed and
underdeveloped countries. His aim was to establish a scientific platform in
Pakistan, but his proposal to General Ayub for setting up an international level
research institute in Pakistan was shot down by the then revenue minister who
exclaimed caustically that this was just an attempt at making a five-star
residence for Salam and his friends.
The
problems of poverty and illiteracy were always on his mind. He said that poverty
could be eradicated in one generation if the entire country made a firm
commitment. In fact he wanted every mosque to display this verse prominently:
“God does not change the condition of a nation which does not make an effort to
change itself.
Dr.
Salam got his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. It was a most embarrassing moment
for General Zia who had supplemented the Second Amendment to the Constitution
with further disabilities against the Ahmediyyas. He had to welcome the great
scientist and had to be seen on TV with him. Since the religious leaders in his
government were already very much annoyed, he took care to clip those sections
of Dr. Salam’s speech where he had said the kalima or otherwise used an Islamic
expression.
After
winning the Nobel Prize, Dr. Salam was not even invited to his own college. By
contrast, when he went to Aligarh Muslim University to receive an honorary
doctorate, the whole city turned up and students pushed his car for a mile to
the campus. The scene at Guru Nanak University was no less exhilarating.
Nevertheless, Dr. Salam remained a loyal and proud citizen of Pakistan, refusing
offers of citizenship from Jordan, Kuwait, Britain. Citizenship of Britain was
offered along with a knighthood. Salam politely refused
both.
On
the tenth death anniversary, The Daily Times in an editorial said, “He was the
first Pakistani to get the Nobel Prize; he might well 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 rather than to scientific enquiry
. . . the Pakistan 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 Chanab Nagar by a state
proclamation.
In
Jhang, where Dr. Salam grew up, the schools that he endowed with scholarships
and grants, now teach communal hatred rather than the love that he had in his
heart when he gave them his money.
In
all fairness to the authorities at Lahore University, Dr. Salam’s name has not
been completely eradicated, indicating perhaps a love-hate relationship. The
Abdus Salam Chair in Physics still exists, as does the Abdus Salam School of
Mathematical Sciences. The main hall of the University is now named Dr. Abdus
Salam Hall.
Nevertheless,
Pakistan needs to feel guilty about what it has done to the greatest scientist
it has produced, in comparision to the lionization of Dr. A.Q.Khan who has
brought ignominy and the label of rogue state to Pakistan by selling the
country’s nuclear technology for personal gains.
When
Salam came to deliver the Faiz Memorial Lecture in Lahore, many wondered what
these two had in common. “We are both persona non grata in our own country. He
showed a couplet in his diary, written by Faiz himself, when the two had met at
a foreign airport:
“
Nisar mein teri galiyon pe ai watan
Ke jahan chali hai rasm ke koi na sar utha ke
chaley”
---
References:
-
Biography of Dr. Abdus Salam
-
Wikipedia - Dr. Abdus Salam
-
Net – Institutions named after Dr. Abdus Salam
3:42 AM
Sultan Shahin
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