Source: huffingtonpost.com

Neatly nestled amidst the immaculately kept ‘Bahishti Maqbara’ cemetery in Rabwah, is the final resting place of Professor Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s first Nobel Laureate and the first Muslim to receive the prize. The headstone marking his burial spot is a discreet slab of white marble, distinguishable from those around it only by virtue of its slightly taller height.

It is disarming to see one of Pakistan’s most famous sons buried in such obscurity. Of greater concern are the whitewashed words from the epitaph inscribed on the stone. In one particular dark irony, Salam is hailed as the ‘first Nobel Laureate’ with the word ‘Muslim’ erased as part of the desecration and thereby conferring on him a higher honor than was his due.

This unceremonious treatment stems from the fact that the physicist was an Ahmadi –a community long persecuted in Pakistan for their perceived heresy.

With his name vanished from the record books, his ground-breaking achievements in theoretical physics ignored and his role of national hero usurped by figures of much lesser worth, Salam’s plight mirrors that of Ahmadis in Pakistan who have for many years now been forced to retreat to the farthest margins of public life.

So far in fact that they are for the most part consigned from memory – a societal taboo few dare to confront. Though there are sporadic instances where the nation comes face to face with the longstanding ‘Ahmadi question’ as was the case after the recent mob attack on an Ahmadi owned chip board factory in Jhelum, they are not only rare but seldom venture beyond the realm of platitude or convoluted theology.

But at a time when Pakistan, on the surface at least, is demonstrating a greater commitment to fighting extremism and religious intolerance through the ongoing army operation ‘Zarb-e-Azb’ against Islamic insurgents in North Waziristan and policy initiatives like the National Action… read more at huffingtonpost.com