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 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, which received mediocre reviews and flopped commercially.
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 Asia'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 Pakistanis and Muslims.
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, 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.[1] 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[2] as part of another "Common Chords II" concert[3] 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.”
Censorship
Ahmad and his band Junoon suffered political censorship in Pakistan during the rule of Benazir Bhutto 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.[4] 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 Prize 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.[5]
Denouncement of Pakistani peace accord with Taliban
Ahmad denounced the Pakistani Government's peace accord with Taliban in 2008 saying 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 and acceptance of ‘Sharia’ in the Swat Valley, Ahmad said, "The killing 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. Ahmad also suggested 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 an article, Ahmad wrote 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 added "but now the Taliban are grafting an alien form of Islam onto Pakistan, with dire consequences for Pakistanis, the region and possibly the world. Many military and civilian lives have been lost to an enemy that loves death more than life. 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,"[6]
Swat benefit
In 2009, Ahmad and his wife Samina were involved in raising money in the name of refugees from Swat.[7][8]
Television
Ahmad has also acted in a few television dramas.
- Dhundle Raste (Featured Vital Signs band)
- Aahat
- Talaash (Featured Junoon band)