Faheem was one of the first people I befriended in early 1971 on my return from my graduate studies in the States, a friendship that survived till he breathed his last. The reasons go much beyond our common interest in physics and physics education and even our common associations with the Physics Department of Quaid-e-Azam University and the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, places where we frequently met. Perhaps the main reason was that we both were greatly influenced by the Black and the anti-Vietnam movements in the States and the broader anti-establishment student movement of the sixties.
Faheem Hussain – As I Knew Him
October 4, 2009
It was mid-October 1973 when, after a grueling 26-hour train ride from Karachi, I reached the physics department of Islamabad University (or Quaid-e-Azam University, as it is now known). As I dumped my luggage and “hold-all” in front of the chairman’s office, a tall, handsome man with twinkling eyes looked at me curiously. He was wearing a bright orange Che Guevara t-shirt and shocking green pants. His long beard, though shorter than mine, was just as unruly and unkempt. We struck up a conversation. At 23, I had just graduated from MIT and was to be a lecturer in the department; he had already been teaching as associate professor for five years. The conversation turned out to be the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Together with Abdul Hameed Nayyar – also bearded at the time – we became known as the Sufis of Physics. Thirty six years later, when Faheem Hussain lost his battle against prostate cancer, our sadness was beyond measure. Read the rest of this entry »
