This great man of faith and science rose to celebrity because of his unmatched contribution to world physics, yet he had to flee his country because of religious persecution.
by Muhammad Masudul Hasan Nuri
Dr. Noor Muhammad Butt, born in 1936 in Sialkot, Punjab, India, first Scientist Emeritus of Pakistan and associated with the Abdus Salam Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), in Trieste, Italy, told me during one of our meetings: “I was in Trieste when Dr. Abdus Salam received the Nobel Prize. In his honor, the entire city was lit up at night to celebrate their prodigy. It was a spectacular event, most awe-inspiring!”
Trieste, an Italian city remembered as “the Sleeping Beauty” and the “Shanghai of Europe,” had seen the times when the likes of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and James Joyce (1882–1941) strolled its streets. “Triestini” take pride in their sea: it’s there and it will always be there. Similarly, ICTP is there and will always be there, a scientific accelerator to rejuvenate Salam’s ideas.
In the “New Scientist” weekly for July 14, 2012, on page 5, a bearded, bespectacled Pakistani scientist is shown: “Abdus Salam, giant among physicists.” The text reads: “How Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam, with Americans Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, developed the electroweak theory that unifies two of the four fundamental forces. Their work helped complete the standard model, of which Higgs is the final part to be observed, and won the trio the 1979 Nobel Prize for physics.”
It further adds: “Despite his success, Salam was forced to leave Pakistan in the 1970s because he was a member of the Ahmadi movement, an offshoot of mainstream Islam that was outlawed by the Pakistani government.” The inappropriate definition of “offshoot” regarding Ahmadi Muslims is, of course, the jargon used by the “New Scientist.” Still, the fact that he was forced to leave his country because he was an Ahmadi Muslim is totally accurate.
“Among physicists,” “the New Scientist” continues reporting an evaluation by Jim Al-Khalili, a physicist at the University of Surrey, the UK, “both men,” meaning Salam and Indian Satyendranath Bose (1894–1974) who worked with Albert Einstein (1879–1955) to understand the behavior of subatomic particles that were later dubbed bosons, “were regarded as giants.” “Science transcends such petty distinctions as race, nationality, or religion. If only the wider world did too.”
One wintry morning, in 2010, I travelled to Jhang, the birthplace of Salam. A friend took me to the overcrowded inner city. The extremely narrow streets, hardly four feet wide, filled the air with overflowing drains, innumerable flies, insects, and stench. When asked about Salam’s house, a young man replied: “Salam—the butcher?” Another person took us to the owner of a bicycle repair shop. The entry to the house was locked. A weather-beaten, wooden door led us into the house. A handwritten signboard in Urdu and English, affixed on top, described it all.
As the door creaked open, we were welcomed by two bleating goats. The lawn was ill-kept, leading us into two small, dark rooms. One was empty; the other had a “charpoy” (the traditional woven bed used across South Asia) and some animal fodder. Upstairs, on the roof, one could see the densely populated inner city with adjoining houses. Live electric wires crossed each house, dangerously exposing the residents. The side walls had clothes spread to dry.
Nearby, a small mosque and a shady banyan tree stood majestically. The future Dr. Salam visited both as a child: the mosque for daily prayers and the banyan tree shade to ward off scorching heat while studying.
Upon seeing the “National Monument,” I fell speechless. The pathetic state made me recoil. On seeing my tortured face, my guide asked fearfully: “What happened?” I responded as if a ghost had appeared. My lips quivered, and my hands shook. I muttered a few words. Then, slowly, as my voice cleared, I said: “Nobel Prize goes to those who have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind. Is this how we honor the son of the soil? Here, in his homeland, it seems, he received the most grotesque eructation of prejudice and hate.”
Paradoxically, the outside world treated him as a celebrity. His innumerable awards and honors, travels to over thirty countries, and meetings with many heads of state made him a role model for young scientists worldwide.
In 1987, I received a copy of “Ideals and Realities,” a selection of Salam’s essays published that year. It contained his compelling talks and a fund of anecdotes, which I have treasured since.
Recently, I visited Salam’s house, where British Heritage erected a blue plaque in 2020 at 8 Campion Road, Putney, SW15 6WW, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. There, he lived for almost forty years, from 1957 to the end of his life in 1996.
His son, Ahmad Salam, showed the room where Dr. Salam worked, preserved much as he left it, with his books: the Holy Quran, Hadith books, Persian literature, his favorite P.G. Wodehouse’s (1881–1975) novels, and even books on medicine.
I also saw his record player and the easy chair in which he sat cross-legged in a woolly hat to think and write while listening to long-playing records of Holy Quranic verses and an eclectic variety of music by composers such as Austrian Johann Strauss (1825–1899) or English Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911).
Salam’s personal items, including diaries, notes, and diplomas, were arranged in his room.
His son Ahmad brought the Nobel Prize Medal from safe custody to show. The medal’s obverse features a portrait of Swedish chemist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel (1833–1896) in left profile and the years of his birth and death. It is struck in 18-carat grain gold plated with 24-carat gold and weighs about 175 grams. The name of the recipient was engraved on the edges of the medal.
I had the unique privilege of visiting Imperial College in London and seeing the Abdus Salam Library, which generally recognizes the scientist’s tremendous contribution to the College and the world of physics and science.
“I hope the new Abdus Salam Library inspires many more people in years to come,” Professor Hugh Brady, President of Imperial College, London, once said.
Salam, as I knew him, was a very passionate man. He was warm, friendly, open, with none of the aloofness usually associated with the great men. He championed the cause of the advancement of science among the disinherited. Despite repeated humiliation, he remained obdurately obedient to Allah.
I echo the words of Gordon Fraser (1943–2013), physicist turned science writer, in his 2008 book “Cosmic Anger”: “Once released from the cocoon of his modest beginning, his relentless drive, his ‘cosmic anger,’ continued for the rest of his life, but frequently had to combat blindness, prejudice and disinterest. Here and there, some seeds of this anger fell on fertile ground and flourished. Salam left other seeds that have yet to germinate. As in the dry desert that blooms after a sudden rain following years of drought, perhaps these desiccated husks can still flower. As years pass, those who visit the institute in Trieste or learn of the science that bears Salam’s name will know less of him as a man, but his pioneer aspirations live on as his spirit is fervently passed from one generation to the next.”
