Pakistan's National Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution to rename the Physics department of Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, which was named after Pakistani physicist Dr Abdus Salam, belonging to minority Ahmadiyya community.
The Ahmadis are not recognised as Muslims after the anti-Ahmadiyya ordinance was made in the Constitution of Pakistan in 1984, which restricted the freedom of religion for Ahmadis.
The Abdus Salam Centre for Physics was named in hounour of Dr Abdus Salam, who won Pakistan's first Nobel Prize in sciences 1979, for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory.
A resolution presented by lawmaker, Captain (retd) Muhammad Safdar sought to rename the department after Pakistani scientist Abu al Fatah Abdul Rahman Al-Khazini, contending he was the "biggest name for Muslims in Physics," Geo TV reported.
In 2016, then prime minister Nawaz Sharif had approved renaming of the National Centre for Physics after Dr Abdus Salam.
Safdar, who is also Sharif's son-in-law, is known for his anti-Ahmadiyya stance, and has previously gone on record to criticize the decision to rename QAU's physics centre after Dr Salam.
"Today, this Parliament has signed a resolution to highlight that the Physics department of Quaid-i-Azam University should be named after the famous scientist Abu al Fatah Abdul Rehman Al-Khazini who was the biggest name for Muslims in Physics," the resolution read.
The resolution hailed Al-Khazini for following in the footsteps of his teacher Al-Biruni and stated that "the whole European world used the works of this prominent Muslim scientist.
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