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Dr. Ahmad Mohmad Sayed Ahmad Alfaki wals.org.uk | Doctors by Last Name (A): Ahmad - Ahmad vitals.com | Salman Ashruf, M.D. - Tummy Tuck Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington DC,... mytummytuckusa.com | Suleiman Salman, DO - APAC Centers for Pain Management apacgroupe.com |
Salman Ahmad (Punjabi, Urdu: سلمان احمد) is a Pakistani musician and former actor, who used to be a member of Vital Signs but left after their debut album due to creative differences. He is also a medical doctor. He went on to form Junoon, South Asia's biggest and longest-lasting rock band. While still enjoying the success of Junoon, Salman Ahmed has been involved in two documentaries with the BBC and is also a UN Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS. Ahmad is working towards spreading awareness about HIV in South Asia, and helping to bring peace between Pakistan and India.
[edit] CareerHe released his solo album, Infiniti, in mid-2005, but contrary to rumors, has not dissolved Junoon. The first video for Infiniti is "Al-Vida". It seeks to promote HIV awareness, and features famous Pakistani actress Nadia Jamil playing the role of a woman whose husband dies of AIDS; Jamil's character goes on to educate street people about preventing the disease. Ahmad has appeared on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, the PBS documentary The Rock Star and The Mullahs, and the BBC documentary It's My Country Too. He has also appeared on CNN and NPR to speak on behalf of Pakistanis and Muslims. In September 2006, Salman Ahmad was personally invited by former US President Bill Clinton to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative panel in New York on Thursday, September 21, featuring such prominent guests as Bill Gates, President Musharraf, Queen Rania, and others. After Junoon's international acclaim and success, Salman reached new heights, which include being an ambassador for peace with numerous international awards under his belt. Salman also played an important role in raising funds and awareness for the massive earthquake that hit Pakistan in October, 2005. In an interview with ARY One World, Ahmad said he would be working with Madonna and Bono in 2007. Recently, Salman has been touring actively, performing and speaking at prestigious U.S. institutions such as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Purdue, Stanford, MIT, and UT Austin. Salman has been teaching a class on music titled "Islamic Music and Culture of South Asia", as a guest faculty at Queens College. This year, he started his second semester as a guest faculty.[1] Salman recently worked with Annie Lennox, Sarah McLachlan and Dave Stewart to record a song for 'Green Peace', which was produced and mixed by Junoon's producer John Alec.
On December 10 2007 Salman Ahmed and Indian tabla maestro Samir Chatterjee performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo City Hall in the honour of former American vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who were the winners of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2007. Salman Ahmad performed with Yale Strom (a world leading Klezmer artist) on March 1, 2008 at Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn Heights as part of another"Common Chords II" concert celebrating Muslim and Jewish Music. Salman is also set to perform with Oscar and multi Grammy award winner Melissa Etheridge, with which he recorded a duet called "Ring the Bells" (hear it at http://deepakchopra.com/2008/09/26/ring-the-bells-by-melissa-etheridge-and-salman-ahmad/). They will be performing at Etheridge's album release concerts in New Jersey and Atlantic City in November 2008. Etheridge hopes to present this track to President-elect Barack Obama. Salman told Freemuse: “I will dedicate these performances to the Pakistan lawyers movement for the restoration of the Supreme Court judges and independence of the judiciary as well as Pakistan's civil society, media, students and rights activists who have heroically protested against the Musharraf government's illegal action of imposing emergency in Pakistan.” [edit] Censorship"As a musician who has faced censorship in my home country Pakistan there is no conflict between my faith and my music. You can be a Muslim and play electric guitar. During a Freemuse conference in Beirut in 2006 I was pleased to be part of one of the rare occasions where music and religion is taken seriously and where discussions on music and Islam focussed on theology and not just social and cultural patterns. [2] I’ve played at the Roskilde Festival in 2000 under the banner of Freemuse, a couple of years after my band Junoon was banned in Pakistan because we protested against the nuclear power tests in India as well as our own country. Why escalate the arms race when people still need water? Why see our neighbours as enemies when we are so close to each other? I’ve taken part in Freemuse dialogue meetings and press meetings. They have always been great meetings places for musicians, researchers and journalists and I’ve always felt that understanding the motivations behind and the mechanisms of censorship have been in focus — not just condemning censorship. Having said that, we, the artists, should always be ready to defend our colleagues when the rights to freedom of expression are attacked, and thus we need an organisation such as Freemuse to help us do this." [edit] Freemuse Ambassador' plays Nobel Peace Prize concert in NorwayTelevised to 100 countries, 'Freemuse Ambassador' Salman Ahmad and his band Junoon performed with artists from all over the world at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, on Tuesday 11 December 2007. Salman told Freemuse: “I will dedicate these performances to the Pakistan lawyers movement for the restoration of the Supreme Court judges and independance of the judiciary as well as Pakistan's civil society, media, students and rights activists who have heroically protested against the Musharraf government's illegal action of imposing emergency in Pakistan.” Salman Ahmad had performed with his band Junoon – Asias’s biggest rock band ever. He was requested to play at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony on 9 December 2007 as well, where was be joined by tabla virtuoso Pandit Samir Chatterjee.[3] [edit] Salman Ahmad denounces the Pakistani peace accord with the Taliban.Ahmad, the founder of Pakistani rock group, Junoon, says that artists in Pakistan take their inspiration from Sufism, the tolerant and inclusive strain of Islam that is the antithesis of the beliefs of the Taliban. Commenting on the Pakistani government ‘peace agreement’ with Taliban troops and acceptance of ‘Sharia’ in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, Ahmad says: - The killing off of arts and culture in Swat is an ominous sign. It is the first step in the potential Talibanization of more of the country. If you give the Taliban an inch - as Zardari has done - they will take a mile. In the article Salman Ahmad writes that in its 60-plus turbulent years as an independent country, Pakistan has been held together by its music, poetry, films, literature and sports. Pakistan is an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, but culture - not religion - is the glue that binds people in this critical U.S.-allied country. Ahmad adds "but now the Taliban are grafting an alien form of Islam onto Pakistan, with dire consequences for Pakistanis, the region and possibly the world. Earlier this month the Pakistani government and army made a deal with the Taliban and gave them control of the Swat valley. The government ceded this region near the Afghan border after countless pitched battles with the militants. Many military and civilian lives have been lost to an enemy that loves death more than life." Ahmad and his band Junoon suffered political censorship in Pakistan during the rule of Benazir Bhutto, partly due to a song denouncing political corruption. Bhutto’s husband is now president of Pakistan and Salman Ahmad suggests that: "President Asif Ali Zardari’s ill-conceived appeasement will only embolden the Taliban and may squelch more of Pakistan’s voices of peace just when Pakistanis and the world need to hear them most." In Swat and elsewhere in the North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan's cultural soul is under attack. Swat - 100 miles from Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad - used to be a haven for arts, music and tourism. There is now eerie silence. "The Taliban have shut down girls’ schools, imposed an extreme interpretation of sharia law and destroyed music shops. Cinemas are being locked down. The fanatics’ idea is simple: to asphyxiate Pakistan’s rich and vibrant culture and replace it with their own `distorted interpretation´ of Islam,"says Salman Ahmad. [4] [edit] Swat benefitSalman Ahmad and Samina were involved in raising money in the name of refugees from Swat.[5][6] [edit] Play ActsSalman has acted in a few television dramas.
[edit] See also[edit] References
[edit] External links
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