Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood born 1940;[1] (alternative spellings: Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood; SI), is a Pakistani nuclear engineer and Islamic scholar educated in Lahore, Pakistan and Manchester, United Kingdom. Bashiruddin Mahmood is widely popular in Pakistan’s scientific and religious circles for his scientific interpretation and its relation to Quran.[1] He played a vital role in the development and expansion of the country’s nuclear industry during its formative years.[1]
After a distinguish scientific career at the PAEC, he formed a right-wing organization, UTN, to promote reconstruction and political development in Afghanistan in 1999. Having being active in Afghanistan for reconstruction, he was arrested by the FIA on suspicion of having sympathy and contacts with the Talibans, as an aftermath of September 11 attacks in the United States. Released and cleared from 53-days long debriefing, he has been out of the public eye and is currently living a quiet life in Islamabad, writing books on the relationships between Islam and science. Mahmood has authored more than 15 books, both in English and Urdu, on the relationship between Islam and science
Life and education
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood was born in Amritsar, Eastern region of British Punjab State, sometime in either 1940 or 1939.[1] After the Indian partition and the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, his parents escaped from pogroms and genocide in India[citation needed] and migrated to Pakistan and settled in a village named ‘Lagar’ near Lahore. Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood’s father, Chaudhry Sharif Khan, was a local village leader (lit. Numberdar) and put all his income to educate his eldest son who stood first in his High school and took 3rd position in the Punjab Matric Board.[1]
The government awarded him a scholarship due to which his father sent him to Government College University (GCU) where he was enrolled in Department of Pre-Engineering in 1958.[1] He stood 3rd in the higher secondary school certificate examination pre-engineering group and got admission at the University of Engineering and Technology of Lahore (UET Lahore).[1] At UET, Mahmood enrolled in College of Engineering, with majors in Electrical engineering. Mahmood studied together with Parvez Butt at UET, and in 1962, Mahmood graduated with BSc with Honors in Electrical Engineering from UET Lahore.[1]
After graduation Mahmood got a job in WAPDA which he left after one year and joined the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as an electrical engineer in 1964.[1] He was sent to Electronics Division (ED) and was one of the pioneering member there.[2] While in PAEC, Mahmood went to Army Recruiting Center (ARC) to join the Pakistan Army, and volunteered to participate in Indo-Pakistan 1965 September war, but by the time he was to be sent to the front lines the war ended and also Dr. I. H. Usmani, the then Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, used his influence in the Government that prevented Mahmood to join the war.[1] Instead, Usmani sent Mahmood to join the Nuclear Physics Group.[2]In 1967, he went to the United Kingdom on a PAEC scholarship, and attended the University of Manchester, where he studied for his double masters degree in Nuclear Engineering and Control System Engineering. In 1969, he completed his double M.Sc. in control system engineering and nuclear engineering from the University of Manchester.[1]
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission
In late 1969, Mahmood came back to Pakistan and rejoined PAEC.[2] Before joining Pakistan’s nuclear energy programme, Mahmood was trained at the Nuclear Engineering Division of the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH). He was a distinguished member of Nuclear Physics Group (NPG) at PINSTECH, where he along with Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, Hafeez Qureshi and Dr. Naeem Ahmad Khan, studied and researched in the field of Nuclear Technology.[2] During his master studies, Mahmood had read scientific reports of the “Manhattan Project” while receiving his training at the Birmingham University, where he also had an opportunity to discuss enrichment technology with scientists from South Africa, who were then exploring the jet-nozzel aerodynamic process of enrichment.[3] During this time, South Africa was clandestinely building its nuclear programme, and South-Africa was in favour to use the aerodynamic nozzle enrichment techniques to produce weapons-grade material.[3]
As Mahmood was also interested in the process, a discussion was held on how to advance this process and make it more effective in order to make better and efficient weaponised-fuel, suitable for the nuclear device.[3]He specialised in reactor technology from the United Kingdom when he was offered post-graduate research by the Manchester University, and did extensive research at British nuclear industry.[1] In 1970, Mahmood was promoted as Chief Engineer (CE) at the KANUPP-I, country’s first commercial nuclear power plant, in Karachi.[1] Mahmood working in the KANUPP-I where he had developed a scientific instrument, the SBM probe to detect leaks in steam pipes, a problem that was affecting nuclear plants all over the world and is still used worldwide.[1] At KANUPP-I, he also set up a laboratory to manufacture spare parts for the plant.[4] According to his son, Mahmood, along with other scientists and engineers, after the Indo-Pak War of 1971, and had locked himself in his room where he cried for two days over the loss of East Pakistan.[1]
Although, a junior scientist at KANUP, he was delegated at the winter seminar, known as Multan meeting on January 1972 where he personally met with Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and delivered a speech on atomic science.[1] In 1974 Munir Ahmad Khan, the then Chairman of PAEC appointed him as the director of the uranium project and began his calculations on the uranium enrichment.[1] The uranium program, although a secondary route for the atomic bomb, began its scientific research and mathematical calculations on uranium diffusion, gas-centrifuge, jet-nozzle and laser enrichment processes; he advocated the centrifuge process, as it was faster and economical.[1] A report, marked as PC-1 finalised, on the centrifuge projects was handwritten by him to maintain the secrecy and feasibility.[1] Immediately, he submitted his report to PAEC and the program was thereafter started with Mahmood being its uranium program’s director in 1974, a move that irked Qadeer Khan, who had coveted the job for himself.[3]
As early as in 1975, he collaborated with another theorist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan on conducting mathematical calculations on centrifuges, as his deputy but both developed differences.[3] His relations with Dr. A.Q. Khan remains tense, and often pictured him as “egomaniac”.[5] With the backing of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in mid 1976 Qadeer Khan had him ejected from the ERL and uranium enrichment projects. Later, Munir Ahmad Khan appointed had secured the directorship of the Directorate of Industrial Liaison (DIL) at PAEC which was created to encourage indigenization in development of nuclear-mechanical parts used in the nuclear reactors.[1]
During 1980s, he was named as the project manager of the Khushab-I; he served as the designer of the Khushab reactor, near Mianwali— a heavy water reactor that produces plutonium and Tritium.[1] Prior to 1991, he also designed and set up a nuclear fuel facility at the Punjab province. In 1988, he was promoted and became Director-General of the Directorate for the Nuclear Power (DGNP).[1] He held his position till 1999 until his resignation from PAEC due to his opposition to Pakistan’s planned signing of CTBT. After the reactor went critical in April 1998, Mahmood in an interview had said: “This reactor (can produce enough plutonium for two to three nuclear weapons per year) Pakistan had “acquired the capability to produce…. boosted thermonuclear weapons and hydrogen bombs.”[1] In 1998, following the country’s nuclear tests (See Chagai-I and Chagai-II), Mahmood was awarded the civilian decoration, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, in a colourful ceremony by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif.[1].[1]
Science Journal 