Besmir Yvejsi, Secretary Ishaat, Jamaat Kosovo
The Islamic newspaper, Preporod (Renaissance) is the first newspaper of its kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina that marked the 50th anniversary of its establishment last year.
Since its inception – while promoting independent opinion and journalism – prominent local and world names from various scientific and cultural fields, regardless of religious and political beliefs, have written and spoken for Preporod, and have been interviewed by this newspaper.
A few years before the war in Bosnia, this newspaper with its editor-in-chief, Jamaludin Latic (Džemaludin Latić) interviewed, among others, the first Muslim Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dr Abdus Salam Sahib. This interview was published in the newspaper Preporod on 1 April 1990.
Seeing the need for the subject of teaching belief in high schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr Latic felt the need to prepare two textbooks for teaching belief, which he published in 2000 with the Bosnian title Islam i svjetske religije I, II (Islam and world religions I, II).
These two books were also published in Albanian in 2011, as a guide for teaching belief in high schools, with a circulation of about 5000 copies. In the first volume, in the chapter “Religion and Science”, the author, after writing about some famous scientists (such as Galileo Galilei and Louis Pasteur), includes an article by Albert Einstein and after him, includes the three-page interview with Dr Abdus Salam Sahib and ends the chapter with the concluding speech of Dr Abdus Salam Sahib during the ceremony of the Nobel Prize he received in 1979.
Some of the question asked to Dr Abdus Salam Sahib were:
1. “Can you explain, as simply as possible, the theory of the single magnetic field, for the discovery of which you won the Nobel Prize, and what does it have to do with Einstein’s theory of relativity?”
2. “How do you see the relationship between religion and science?”
The main question of the interview, which is worth mentioning, was:
“In your research, you have been guided by the Quranic vision of the Cosmos, man and God. What ayats [verses] or ideas from the Quran particularly inspired you?”
The answer of Dr Abdus Salam Sahib was brilliant:
“[Taking out a copy of theQuran, he opens the Holy Quran and asks] Which ayat do you want me to quote, Ayat-ul-Kursi? Yes, of course.
“Allah — there is no God but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting and All-Sustaining. Slumber seizes Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth … [Surah al-Baqarah, Chapter 2: V.256] SubhanAllah! Every ayat, every ayat inspires me!”
Dr Abdus Salam Sahib, in addition to the Nobel Prize in Physics, had received several other important awards such as the Smith’s Prize, Adams Prize, Star of Pakistan (Sitara-e-Pakistan), Order of Excellence (Nishan-e-Imtiaz) and the Royal Medal etc.
He passed away in 1996 and was buried in Rabwah, Pakistan.
