IT is Faiz Ahmad Faiz's centenary year. Yesterday, Jan 29, was Abdus Salam's 80th birth anniversary. Faiz's poetry fostered rebellion against oppression. Salam's research bridged the gap between science and religion.

No two pursuits could be more different, but they both dispelled age-old taboos. The poet and the scientist together will go down in history as harbingers of a revolution that may not be in sight but, as Faiz put it, “has been written on the slate of eternity” — “ jo loh-e-azl men likha hai ” .

Nothing sends audiences of the privileged and poor of Pakistan alike into greater raptures than hearing Iqbal Bano sing of the promised day when “ sab taj uchhale jaenge / sab takht girae jaenge … aur raj kare gi khalq-e-khuda / jo mein bi hun or tum bi ho ” — “All crowns will be tossed / All thrones will be toppled … Then the humble of the earth will rule / That is me and you too”.

In his memorial lecture on Faiz in Lahore in 1988, Salam recalled that no less than one-eighth of Quranic text invites men to conquer nature and tame its resources, and that is what science and technology is all about. Faiz expressed the same thought when he counselled those who wished to fight with him to go and conquer the universe instead — “ jis ko shawq-e-nabard ho / hum se jai taskhir-e-kainat karey”.

The thoughts of the two men coincide on yet another plane. Salam was a professor of particle physics who won the Nobel Prize for his research proving that the electromagnetic and weak forces were in fact two aspects of the same force.

Faiz expressed the same thought in his poetry: “ kai bar is ki khatir zare zare ka jigar cheera / magar is chashm-e-hairan ki hairani nahin jati ” — “Time and again have I cut through the heart of the particle / But the confusion of my confounded eye refuses to go away”.

It is this chashm-e-hairan , Salam said in his memorial lecture on Faiz, that is the foundation of superior science. To his fellow professors and students at London's Imperial College and at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Salam was known as a 'sage scientist'.

At the Nobel Prize investiture he started his address by reciting verses from the Holy Quran: “He who has created seven heavens in harmony, no incongruity canst thou see in the creation of the Gracious God.

“Then look again: seest thou any flaw? Look again, and yet again, thy sight will only return unto thee confused and fatigued.”

It was perhaps for the first time that readings from the Holy Quran rang through those halls. These very verses seem to have inspired Faiz's chashm-e-hairan . He believed in human values in their highest form, which indeed are religious values.

Look at Faiz's Persian na'at , a tribute to the Holy Prophet: “ Aai tu keh haste har dil mahzun serai tu, awarda um serai digr az brai tu. Khawaja bah takht bandai tashwishe mulk o mal, bar khake rashke khusroe dauran gadae tu. Anja qaside khwanie lazzate sim o zar, einja faqat hadise mishate laqae tu. Atish fishan zaqhr o malamat zubane sheikh, az ashke tarze darde gharibane redai tu. Bayed keh zalimane jahan ra sada kund, roze basue adal o inayat sadai tu.

An imperfect translation: “O thou whose home is every sorrowful heart, here I bring more homes to thee. The chieftains on their thrones who are slaves to their anxieties and possessions, they are beggars before thee — the envy of the sovereign of the age.

“There are odes of praise for silver and gold, this is but a story of the grace of thy countenance. The sheikh's fire-breathing tongue spews anger and reproach, tears of the poor are the pride of thy cloak. The oppressors of the world will cry out for your indulgence on the day of judgment.”

Against this background, hard-hearted are the men who doubt Faiz or Salam's commitment to their faith. Faiz's poetry needs no monuments. It is preserved in the hearts of people, and so will it be in the generations to come.

A school of mathematical sciences in Lahore named after Salam is busy disseminating his theories. It has so far produced 47 PhDs and is training another 100. Its students win prizes at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

The School of Science and Engineering at LUMS has also created the Abdus Salam Chair to impart greater impetus to research in theoretical physics. Meanwhile, Pakistani physicists in large numbers continue to benefit from visits to the Trieste centre, which is now named after Salam.

Like Faiz's poetry, Salam's scientific theory is putting down roots in the culture of Pakistan. Faiz did not live to see the day which, he said, was set in stone, nor did Salam.

But the journey that will free the nation's mind from hate and superstition has begun. Their musings and exertions keep alive the hope of an era of enlightenment.

Neither of them needs it, but the authorities-that-be must consider naming a road or a square in Lahore and Islamabad for each of them. Who ever deserved greater recognition than these two outcasts of an oppressive culture who are also, as Faiz said, “ mardud-e-haram ” — “rejects of the Kaaba”? If Moscow can raise a monument to Faiz and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva can name a street after Salam, why not in their own country, which hasn't produced the likes of them again?

kunwaridris@hotmail.com