Abdus Salam
Mohammad Abdus SalamNI, SPk, KBE (Punjabi, Urdu: محمد عبد السلام; pronounced [əbd̪ʊs səlɑm]; 29 January 1926 – 21 November 1996), was a Pakistani theoretical physicist. Salam, a major figure in 20th century theoretical physics, shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the landmark electroweak unification. He was the first (and until Malala Yousufzai the only) Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in science and the second of an Islamic country after Muslim Nobel Laureate (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. Salam was responsible not only for contributing to major developments in theoretical and particle physics, but also for promoting the broadening and deepening of high calibre scientific research in his country. He was the founding director of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and 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 as well to development of atomic bomb project of Pakistan in 1972; for this, he is viewed as the "scientific father" of this programme. In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Pakistan Parliament passed a controversial parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya Community as not-Islamic. In 1998, following the country's nuclear tests, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative stamp, as a part of "Scientists of Pakistan", to honour the services of Salam.
