Salman Ahmad
Encyclopedia
Salman Ahmad is a Pakistan
i musician and former actor, who used to be a member of Vital Signs but left after their debut album due to creative differences. He went on to form Junoon, South Asia
's biggest and longest-lasting rock band. While still enjoying the success of Junoon, he was 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. Ahmad is currently teaching at Queens College, City University of New York
. Although Junoon's two other core members - Ali Azmat and Brain O'Connell - left the band in 2005, Salman Ahmad continues to perform as a solo artist under the "Junoon" label and has moved to New York after his solo career failed to take off in Pakistan. Salman Ahmad has also released one album as a solo artist, "Infiniti" in 2005.
's biggest and longest-lasting rock band, along with Ali Azmat
. After Junoon's international acclaim and success, Ahmad reached new heights, which included being an ambassador for peace with numerous international awards under his belt.
Ahmad released his first solo album, Infiniti, in mid-2005, but contrary to rumors, he did not dissolve Junoon. The first video for Infiniti was "Al-Vida", which aimed to promote HIV awareness, and featured 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.
He also played an important role in raising funds and awareness for the massive earthquake
that hit Pakistan in October, 2005. In September 2006, Ahmad was personally invited by former US President Bill Clinton
to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative panel in New York
on September 21, which featured many other prominent guests such as Bill Gates
, Pervez Musharraf
, Queen Rania, and others.
Ahmad also 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 also appeared on CNN
and NPR to speak on behalf of Pakistan
is and Muslim
s.
In an interview with ARY One World
in 2007, Ahmad said he would be working with Madonna
and Bono
. He has been touring actively, performing and speaking at prestigious U.S. institutions such as Columbia University
, Yale
, Harvard, Princeton
, Purdue, Stanford, MIT, and UT Austin.
He has also 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. Ahmad also 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.
Ahmad performed at the Cherry Blossom Festival
on April 6, 2008 in Washington DC. He also performed in Toronto
on November 4, 2008 at Roy Thomson Hall
as part of the sold-out 'A Mystical Journey concert'. With stops in Vancouver
, Edmonton
, Calgary
and Montreal
, and featuring 60 musicians and dancers from various parts of the Muslim world, the concert marked the Golden Jubilee initiative of His Highness Prince Aga Khan
, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims.
On December 10, 2007 Ahmed and Indian tabla maestro Samir Chatterjee performed together at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo City Hall
in the honour of the 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.
On March 1, 2008, Ahmad performed with Yale Strom
(a world leading Klezmer
artist) at Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn Heights as part of another "Common Chords II" concert celebrating Muslim and Jewish Music. He also performed with Oscar and multi Grammy award winner Melissa Etheridge
, with whom he recorded a duet called "Ring the Bells". Etheridge hoped to present this track to President-elect Barack Obama
. They also performed at Etheridge's album release concerts in New Jersey
and Atlantic City in November 2008.
About these performances, Ahmad said; “I 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.”
in 1990s, partly due to a song denouncing political corruption. In 1998 during the rule of Nawaz Sharif
, Junoon was again banned in Pakistan, because they protested against the nuclear power tests in India
as well as their own country by saying, "Why escalate the arms race when people still need water? Why see our neighbors as enemies when we are so close to each other?"
Ahmed played at the Roskilde Festival in 2000 under the banner of Freemuse, just a couple of years after the ban. As a musician who faced censorship in his home country, Ahmed says that "there is no conflict between my faith and my music, you can be a Muslim and play electric guitar
".
In 2006, During a Freemuse conference in Beirut
he was part of one of the rare occasions where music and religion was taken seriously and where discussions on music and Islam
focused on theology and not just social and cultural patterns. About this he said, "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."
Concert in Oslo
, Norway
, on 11 December 2007. He also played at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony on 9 December 2007, where he was joined by tabla virtuoso Pandit Samir Chatterjee.
. Melissa Etheridge
wrote in the introduction " "The story you are about to read is the story of a light-bringer....Salman Ahmad inspires me to reach always for the greatest heights and never to fear....Know that his story is a part of our history."
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i musician and former actor, who used to be a member of Vital Signs but left after their debut album due to creative differences. He went on to form Junoon, South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
's biggest and longest-lasting rock band. While still enjoying the success of Junoon, he was involved in two documentaries with the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and is also a UN Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. Ahmad is working towards spreading awareness about HIV in South Asia, and helping to bring peace between Pakistan and India. Ahmad is currently teaching at Queens College, City University of New York
Queens College, City University of New York
Queens College, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City, is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York. It is also the fifth oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning. The college's seventy seven acre campus is located in the heart of the...
. Although Junoon's two other core members - Ali Azmat and Brain O'Connell - left the band in 2005, Salman Ahmad continues to perform as a solo artist under the "Junoon" label and has moved to New York after his solo career failed to take off in Pakistan. Salman Ahmad has also released one album as a solo artist, "Infiniti" in 2005.
Music career
Ahmad started his music career with Vital Signs, but left after their debut album due to creative differences. In 1990, Ahmad formed Junoon, South AsiaSouth Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
's biggest and longest-lasting rock band, along with Ali Azmat
Ali Azmat
Ali Azmat is a Ali Azmat is a...
. After Junoon's international acclaim and success, Ahmad reached new heights, which included being an ambassador for peace with numerous international awards under his belt.
Ahmad released his first solo album, Infiniti, in mid-2005, but contrary to rumors, he did not dissolve Junoon. The first video for Infiniti was "Al-Vida", which aimed to promote HIV awareness, and featured 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.
He also played an important role in raising funds and awareness for the massive earthquake
2005 Kashmir earthquake
The 2005 Kashmir earthquake was a major earthquake centered in Pakistan-administered Kashmir known as Azad Kashmir, near the city of Muzaffarabad, affecting Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It occurred at 08:52:37 Pakistan Standard Time on 8 October 2005...
that hit Pakistan in October, 2005. In September 2006, Ahmad was personally invited by former US President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative panel in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on September 21, which featured many other prominent guests such as Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
, Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
, Queen Rania, and others.
Ahmad also appeared on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect
Politically Incorrect
Politically Incorrect is a late-night, half-hour political talk show hosted by Bill Maher that ran from 1993 to 2002. It premiered on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997, and later on ABC in 1997, which cancelled it in 2002....
, the PBS documentary The Rock Star and The Mullahs, and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary It's My Country Too
This World (television programme)
This World is a BBC television documentary strand, shown in the United Kingdom on BBC Two, and occasionally internationally on BBC World. The subject matter is mainly social issues and current affairs stories from around the world....
. He also appeared on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
and NPR to speak on behalf of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
is and Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s.
In an interview with ARY One World
ARY One World
ARY News is a Dubai-based Pakistani news channel launched in 26 September 2004. A bilingual news channel in English and Urdu, it is a part of the ARY Digital Network, which is a subsidiary of ARY Group. It has a large audience and one main competitor in Geo News...
in 2007, Ahmad said he would be working with Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
and Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
. He has been touring actively, performing and speaking at prestigious U.S. institutions such as Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
, Harvard, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Purdue, Stanford, MIT, and UT Austin.
He has also 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. Ahmad also worked with Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...
, Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...
and Dave Stewart
David A. Stewart
David Allan Stewart , often known as Dave Stewart, is an English musician, songwriter and record producer, best known for his work with Eurythmics. He is usually credited as David A. Stewart, to avoid confusion with other musicians named "Dave Stewart".-Early life:Stewart was born in Sunderland,...
to record a song for 'Green Peace', which was produced and mixed by Junoon's producer John Alec.
Ahmad performed at the Cherry Blossom Festival
National Cherry Blossom Festival
The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a spring celebration in Washington, D.C., commemorating the March 27, 1912, gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington...
on April 6, 2008 in Washington DC. He also performed in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
on November 4, 2008 at Roy Thomson Hall
Roy Thomson Hall
Roy Thomson Hall is a concert hall located at 60 Simcoe Street in Toronto, Ontario. It is the home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Opened in 1982, its circular architectural design exhibits a sloping and curvilinear glass exterior. It was designed by Canadian...
as part of the sold-out 'A Mystical Journey concert'. With stops in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, and featuring 60 musicians and dancers from various parts of the Muslim world, the concert marked the Golden Jubilee initiative of His Highness Prince Aga Khan
Aga Khan IV
Prince Karim, Aga Khan IV, NPk, NI, KBE, CC, GCC, GCIH, GCM is the 49th and current Imam of the Shia Imami Nizari Ismaili Muslims. He has held this position under the title of Aga Khan since July 11, 1957, when, at the age of 20, he succeeded his grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan...
, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims.
On December 10, 2007 Ahmed and Indian tabla maestro Samir Chatterjee performed together at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo City Hall
Oslo City Hall
Oslo City Hall houses the city council, city administration, and art studios and galleries. The construction started in 1931, but was paused by the outbreak of World War II, before the official inauguration in 1950. Its characteristic architecture, artworks and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, held...
in the honour of the former American vice president Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
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.
On March 1, 2008, Ahmad performed with Yale Strom
Yale Strom
Yale Strom is a pioneer among klezmer revivalists in conducting extensive field research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans among the Jewish and Rom communities since 1981. Initially, his work focused primarily on the use and performance of klezmer music between these two groups...
(a world leading Klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
artist) at Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn Heights as part of another "Common Chords II" concert celebrating Muslim and Jewish Music. He also performed with Oscar and multi Grammy award winner Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Lou Etheridge is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician.Etheridge is known for her mixture of confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals...
, with whom he recorded a duet called "Ring the Bells". Etheridge hoped to present this track to President-elect Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. They also performed at Etheridge's album release concerts in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
and Atlantic City in November 2008.
About these performances, Ahmad said; “I 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.”
Censorship
Ahmad and his band Junoon suffered political censorship in Pakistan during the rule of Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....
in 1990s, partly due to a song denouncing political corruption. In 1998 during the rule of Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif
Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif is a Pakistani conservative politician and steel magnate who served as 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from November 1990 to July 1993, and from February 1997 to October 12, 1999...
, Junoon was again banned in Pakistan, because they protested against the nuclear power tests in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
as well as their own country by saying, "Why escalate the arms race when people still need water? Why see our neighbors as enemies when we are so close to each other?"
Ahmed played at the Roskilde Festival in 2000 under the banner of Freemuse, just a couple of years after the ban. As a musician who faced censorship in his home country, Ahmed says that "there is no conflict between my faith and my music, you can be a Muslim and play electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
".
In 2006, During a Freemuse conference in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
he was part of one of the rare occasions where music and religion was taken seriously and where discussions on music and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
focused on theology and not just social and cultural patterns. About this he said, "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."
Nobel Peace Prize concert in Norway
Televised in around 100 countries, Ahmad and his band Junoon performed with artists from all over the world at the Nobel Peace PrizeNobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
Concert in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, on 11 December 2007. He also played at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony on 9 December 2007, where he was joined by tabla virtuoso Pandit Samir Chatterjee.
Writer
Salman Ahmad published an autobiographical work titled "Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution" in January 2010. The book was published by Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
. Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Lou Etheridge is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician.Etheridge is known for her mixture of confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals...
wrote in the introduction " "The story you are about to read is the story of a light-bringer....Salman Ahmad inspires me to reach always for the greatest heights and never to fear....Know that his story is a part of our history."
Swat benefit
In 2009, Ahmad and his wife Samina were involved in raising money for refugees from Swat.Television
Ahmad has also acted in a few television dramas.- Dhundle RasteDhundle Raste (Television mini-series)Dhundle Raste is Pakistan television mini-series featuring Vital Signs, a popular Pakistani pop music group. It was written by Haseena Moin and directed by Shoaib Mansoor. Due to its novel storyline it became an extremely popular drama in Pakistan.-Cast:...
(Featured Vital Signs band) - Aahat
- TalaashTalaash (TV series)Talaash is Pakistan television mini-series featuring Junoon, a popular Pakistani sufi rock music group. It was written by Anwar Maqsood and directed by Atiqa Odho. Due to its novel storyline it became an extremely popular drama in Pakistan.-Cast:*Salman Ahmad*Atiqa Odho*Ali Azmat*Brian...
(Featured Junoon band)