Salman Ahmad facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Salman Ahmad
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Salman Ahmad
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Salman Ahmad |
| Born | 12 December 1963 Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan |
| Genres |
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| Occupation(s) | Musician, physician |
| Instruments | vocals, electric guitar, Electric acoustic guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar |
| Years active | 1989 – present |
| Labels | Coke Studio, EMI Records, PTV Studios, Studio 146 |
Salman Ahmad (Urdu: سلمان احمد, born on December 12, 1963) is a Pakistani-American musician and rock guitarist. He is also a physician, activist, and sometimes an actor. He teaches at the City University of New York.
Salman became very popular in 1998 for his unique rock guitar style. He was an early member of the band Vital Signs. In 1990, he started his own band called Junoon (which means Passion) with American bassist Brian O'Connell. Together, they helped create a new style of rock music in Pakistan called Sufi rock.
He began working as an activist in the mid-1990s. He has been part of two BBC documentaries. These films looked at issues in Pakistan like society, education, religion, and science.
Salman Ahmad has also been a UN Goodwill Ambassador for the HIV/AIDS Programme. He helped spread awareness about HIV in South Asia. He has worked with the media in Pakistan to help start peace efforts between India and Pakistan. He still makes documentaries and solo guitar albums.
Today, he is a professor at the Queens College in New York. Even though the Junoon band stopped performing together as much, Salman Ahmad continues to play music as a solo artist under the "Junoon" name. He moved to New York and released a solo album called "Infiniti" in 2005.
Contents
Early Life
Salman Ahmad spent his early years in Pakistan. He went to Aitchison College there. Later, his family moved to New York because his father got a job in the airline industry. In the United States, Salman went to middle and high school. This is where he first heard rock music. He saw a Led Zeppelin concert at Madison Square Garden.
This concert made him want to become a musician. He started learning to play the guitar, even though his parents didn't want him to. After finishing school, he went back to Pakistan to study medicine. But the political situation changed a lot, and there was more extremism. This made it harder for him to play his guitar openly.
He decided to play at secret talent shows. He wasn't bothered by criticism or even threats from extremists. These hidden performances and the challenges he faced helped him become a supporter of peace. They also led him to start the bands Junoon and Vital Signs.
Music Career
Salman Ahmad has taught a class at Queens College called "Islamic Music and Culture of South Asia." He is a guest teacher there. He has taught this class for several semesters.
On March 1, 2008, Ahmad performed with Yale Strom. Strom is a famous Klezmer artist. They played at Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn Heights. This was part of a concert series called "Common Chords II." It celebrated Muslim and Jewish music. Ahmad and Strom lead a group called Common Chords. It includes musicians from different faiths.
In 2016, Salman Ahmad released a new song called "Kaise Bolun." It was for a Bollywood movie called "Rhythm." Some of his fans didn't like the song's music and video as much. They said they didn't expect that kind of music from him.
Performing for Peace
Salman Ahmad and his band Junoon performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. This concert took place in Oslo, Norway, on December 11, 2007. Artists from all over the world performed there. The concert was shown on TV in about 100 countries.
He also played at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony on December 9, 2007. There, he was joined by the amazing tabla player Pandit Samir Chatterjee.
Facing Challenges
Salman Ahmad and his band Junoon faced problems with censorship in Pakistan. This happened in the 1990s when Benazir Bhutto was in charge. One reason was a song they sang that criticized political issues.
In 1998, when Nawaz Sharif was leading the country, Junoon was banned again in Pakistan. This was because they spoke out against the nuclear tests in India and their own country. They asked, "Why make more weapons when people still need water? Why see our neighbors as enemies when we are so close?"
Ahmad played at the Roskilde Festival in 2000. He performed under the name 'Freemuse'. This was just a few years after the ban. Freemuse is an organization that supports freedom of musical expression. As a musician who faced censorship, Ahmad believes, "there is no conflict between my faith and my music, you can be a Muslim and play electric guitar."
In 2006, he attended a Freemuse conference in Beirut. This was a rare event where music and religion were discussed seriously. The talks focused on how music and Islam relate to religious ideas. He said, "I've taken part in Freemuse dialogue meetings and press meetings. They have always been great meeting 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."
Other Work
Acting Roles
Salman Ahmad has acted in TV shows.
- Dhundle Raste (This show featured the Vital Signs band)
- Aahat
- Talaash (This show featured the Junoon band)
He also composed the original song Open Your Eyes for the HBO documentary Open Your Eyes. The singer for this song was Peter Gabriel.
Writing a Book
In January 2010, Salman Ahmad published a book about his life. It is called Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution. The book was published by Simon & Schuster.
Helping Others
In 2009, Salman Ahmad and his wife Samina helped raise money. This money was for people in Swat who had to leave their homes.
As a UNAIDS Goodwill ambassador, he worked to make people more aware of HIV/AIDS.
Political Involvement
Salman Ahmad has often been seen at rallies for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. This party was started by the famous cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. Salman Ahmad sings patriotic and inspiring songs at these rallies. These songs help to energize the crowd. People sometimes say he is a member of the party.
In October 2016, Salman Ahmad was taken into custody by the police in Islamabad. This happened when activists had disagreements with law enforcement officers in Rawalpindi.
See also
- List of Pakistani musicians
- Music of Pakistan
