ISLAMABAD - The Lower Chamber of the Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution to rename the Quaid-i-Azam University's Dr Abdus Salam Center. However, in their haste and bigotry, the members displayed their incompetence by mentioning the wrong facility.

As soon as the resolution was passed, social media buffs lashed out at Captain (r) Safdar, for trying to rename the department, named after Nobel Laureate Dr Abus Salam. However, it turned out that the resolution had actually failed to rename the center.

The resolution moved by Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar stressed that the department should be renamed after another scientist, Abu al Fatah Abdul Rehman Al- Khazini. However, interestingly, it mentioned the physics department of the varsity, instead of the National Centre for Physics.

"The creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was based on the Two-Nation Theory, the department should be renamed after Abu al Fatah Abdul Rahman Al-Khazini, so that the world can know that he followed in the footsteps of his teacher Al-Biruni to achieve amazing feats in the world of physics,” the resolution stated.

The Quaid e Azam University has multiple Physics related departments, including National Center for Physics, which was renamed after Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam in December 2016 by then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

However, the resolution which sailed through the National Assembly, called for renaming the Physics department, which has nothing to do with NCP as both are two separate entities.

Dr Abdus Salam - Profile

Dr Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in science and the second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize (after Anwar Sadat of Egypt).

Salam was a top-level science advisor to the Government of Pakistan from 1960 to 1974, a position from which he played a major and influential role in the development of the country’s science infrastructure.

He was responsible not only for contributing to major developments in theoretical and particle physics but also for promoting the broadening and deepening of high-quality scientific research in his country.

The physics genius was the founding director of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and was responsible for the establishment of the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

As Science Advisor, Salam played an integral role in Pakistan’s development of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and may have contributed to the development of Pakistan's atomic bomb project in 1972.

Salam’s major and notable achievements include the Pati–Salam model, magnetic photon, vector meson, Grand Unified Theory, work on supersymmetry and, most importantly, electroweak theory, for which he was awarded the most prestigious award in physics – the Nobel Prize.

In 1974, Abdus Salam left Pakistan after the Parliament passed a parliamentary bill that declared the Ahmadiyya movement, to which Salam belonged, as non-Muslims.

In 1998, following the country’s nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan under the premiership of Nawaz Sharif issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of “Scientists of Pakistan”, to laud the matchless services of Dr. Salam.

As a teacher and science promoter, Salam is remembered as a founder and scientific father of mathematical and theoretical physics in Pakistan during his term as the chief scientific advisor to the president.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had renamed the National Centre for Physics as Dr. Adbus Salam’s Centre for Physics, acknowledging his services. However, his son-in-law has been against the move and had called for a complete ban on the induction of members from Ahmadiyya community to the armed forces.