Abdus Salam as young in 9th class.Salam's father was an officer in the Department of Education in a poor farming district. His family has a long tradition of piety and learning. At age fourteen, Salam scored the highest marks ever recorded for the Matriculation Examination at the Punjab University. He won a scholarship to the Government College, Punjab University, in Lahore. As a fourth-year student there, he published his work on Srinivasa Ramanujan. He received his master's degree from the Government College in 1946. That same year, he was awarded a scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge University, where he completed a BA degree with Double First-Class Honours 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 obtained a PhD degree in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge. His doctoral thesis contained fundamental work in Quantum Electrodynamics. By the time it was published in 1951, it had already gained him an international reputation and the Adams Prize. Later career: He returned to the Government College University, Lahore as a Professor of Mathematics from 1951 to 1954 and then went back to Cambridge as a lecturer in mathematics. In 1956 he was invited to take a chair at Imperial College, London, where he and Paul Matthews created a lively theoretical physics group. In the 1960s this department included well known physicists such as Steven Weinberg, Tom Kibble, Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and John Ward. Salam remained a professor at Imperial until his retirement. During the early 1960s Dr Abdus Salam played a very significant role in establishing the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) – the atomic research agency of Pakistan – and Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) – the space research agency of Pakistan, of which he was the founding director. Due to Prof. Salam's influence President Ayub Khan had the Nuclear Power Plant near Karachi (KANUPP) personally approved, against the wishes of his own Government. Salam was also instrumental in setting up five Superior Science colleges throughout Pakistan to further the progress in science in the country. Salam was a firm believer that "scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind," and that developing nations needed to help themselves and invest into 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. 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. In 1964, Salam founded International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, in the North-East of Italy. He was the Director of ICTP from 1964 to December 1993. The Centre has since been renamed to (The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics). In 1959, he became one of the youngest to be named Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 33. His dedicated personal assistant was Jean Bouckley In 1998, the Government of Pakistan issued a stamp carrying his portrait as part of a series entitled "Scientists of Pakistan." He was a foreign fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences. Religion: Abdus Salam was a devout Muslim, and a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who saw his religion as integral to his scientific work. He once wrote: "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 render thanks with a humble heart". During his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Physics, Salam quoted the following verses 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 thee dazzled, aweary. He then 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”. In 1974, when the Parliament of Pakistan declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslims, he left Pakistan for London in protest.
Death:
The defaced grave of Abdus Salam in Rabwah. Salam died on 21st November 1996 at the age of 70 in Oxford, England after a long illness. His body was brought to Pakistan and kept in Darul Ziafat, where some 13,000 men and women visited to pay their last respects. Some 30,000 people attended his funeral prayers. Salam was buried in the graveyard Bahishti Maqbara in Rabwah next to his parents' graves. The epitaph on his tomb initially read "First Muslim Nobel Laureate" but, because of Salam's adherence to the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, the word "Muslim" was later erased on the orders of a local magistrate, leaving the nonsensical "First Nobel Laureate". Salam was responsible for laying the groundwork for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, initiating research on problems of waterlogging and salinity, and agricultural research. He played a crucial role in PAEC and SUPARCO, the National Space Agency of Pakistan. He helped Pakistan's scientists and engineers to be trained in nuclear applications and nuclear science. Legacy: In 1998, Government of Pakistan issued the stamp carrying the photo of Dr. Salam as a part of "Scientists of Pakistan." Abdus Salam's work in Pakistan has been far reaching and influential. He has made extraordinary contributions to Pakistan's nuclear, space and missile programs. Therefore, in 1998, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp to honour the services of Abdus Salam as part of its "Scientists of Pakistan" series. Abdus Salam has been commemorated by Pakistan's noted and prominent scientists, who were also his students. Many scientists have recalled their college experiences. Ghulam Murtaza, a professor of plasma physics at the Government College University, Lahore has said: " When Dr. Salam was to deliver a lecture, the hall would be packed and although the subject was Particle Physics, his manner and eloquence was such as if he was talking about literature. When he finished his lectures, listeners would often burst into spontaneous applause and give him a standing ovation. People from all parts of the world would come to Imperial College and seeks Dr. Salam's help. He would give a patient hearing to everyone including those who were talking nonsense. He treated everyone with respect and compassion and never belittled or offended anyone. Dr. Salam's strength was that he could "sift jewels from the sand". Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, former PAEC chairman and a life long friend of Salam who previously served as a former professor of nuclear physics at the Quaid-i-Azam University, recalls: "Dr. Abdus Salam was responsible for sending about 500 physicists, mathematicians and scientists from Pakistan, for PhD’s to the best institutions in UK and USA" . In August 1996, former chairmen of PAEC and lifelong friends, Munir Ahmad Khan and dr. Ishfaq Ahmad met with Salam in Oxford, United Kingdom. Munir Ahmad Khan (late), former PAEC chairman who headed the nuclear weapons and power program, said: "My last meeting with Abdus Salam was only three months ago. His disease had taken its toll and he was unable to talk. Yet he understood what was said. I told him about the celebration held in Pakistan on his seventieth birthday. He kept staring at me. He had risen above praise. As I rose to leave he pressed my hand to express his feelings as if he wanted to thank everyone who had said kind words about him. Dr. Abdus Salam had deep love for Pakistan in spite of the fact that he was treated unfairly and indifferently by his own country. It became more and more difficult for him to come to Pakistan and this hurt him deeply. Now he has returned home finally, to rest in peace for ever in the soil that he loved so much. May be in the years to come we will rise above our prejudice and own him and give him, after his death, what we could not when he was alive. We Pakistanis may choose to ignore Dr. Salam, but the world at large will always remember him." Documentary film (Docufilm): A documentary film on the life and science of Abdus Salam is in the works and will be directed by Sabiha Sumar subject to collection of donations valued to $500,000.
