'Physics is his religion': M.G. Vassanji's latest novel explores the multi-faceted life of a Muslim scientist
The acclaimed Canadian writer talks to The Next Chapter about his latest book Everything There Is
Originally aired on Nov. 4, 2023.
Inspired by the life and work of physicist Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize, Everything There Is follows the complicated life of a deeply brilliant man who is devout in his religion and his work in physics.
M.G. Vassanji is an author from Toronto. He has published short stories, novels, memoirs and biographies. He has won the Scotiabank Giller Prize twice: in 1994 for The Book of Secrets and in 2003 for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. He is a member of the Order of Canada and has been awarded several honorary doctorates. His novel Nostalgia was defended on Canada Reads 2017 by Jody Mitic.
World-renowned physicist Nurul Islam is a dedicated family man trying to reconcile his religious beliefs with his scientific convictions in the novel Everything There Is. On a trip to Cambridge, Mass., he falls in love with a graduate student named Hilary and betrays his wife.
With his views on God and science drawing the ire of fundamentalists in Pakistan, he becomes a target when he refuses to contribute to their nuclear program. His wife Sakina finds out about his infidelity and unwittingly betrays him as he sees everything he's worked for begin to fall apart.
Vassanji spoke to The Next Chapter's Ali Hassan about the inspiration for Everything There Is.
This physicist in your novel is a fictionalized version of a famous physicist, Abdus Salam, who was born in pre-partition India and was the first Muslim ever to win the Nobel Prize. When did you realize that his life could be turned into a novel?
Back in 2015, we had a small gathering in my home in Toronto and I brought up the subject of Abdus Salam. The guy was at the top of his field — and at that level, most physicists are not religious. They don't believe in God. They don't think God is necessary because you can explain the universe in their equations, at least in principles. I wondered, how did they live with him, who is religious at the same time?
One of the brilliant minds in physics of the 20th century and with all his colleagues: Feynman, Gell-Mann, Weinberg, even Einstein, if you look at Stephen Hawking's writings, God doesn't come into it, although people keep asking them. So I wondered how [a man like Salam] managed? What kind of life would he have had?
And of course, I wanted to write a novel and not a life of Salam – I wanted to write my interpretation. It's a novel inspired by their life and that conundrum: physics at a high level, not just screws, nuts and bolts, but abstract and not only just to believe in God but to a God to whom you bow and pray.
Nurul Islam is your protagonist and he exhibits his brilliance early. At six years old, he mastered the Qur'an by heart. So how do you see that gift — or the gift of anyone who's a child prodigy?
Well, it's just a gift. Some children are endowed, especially in some disciplines, and for him mathematics was his forté.
In real life, Salam was of course coached by his father and groomed to become what he became. But you cannot coach a genius, it's impossible. He just was what he was! At age 20, he proved a different solution to an arithmetical problem which had been solved by another genius from India, Ramanujan. He was fortunate in the sense that just at the time of the partition of India, when there was bloodshed all around, he got a scholarship to go to Cambridge and then life took its own turn.
He worked with the best minds in physics at Cambridge, was given the job at Imperial College and given a scholarship to go to Princeton and so on. Everyone knew this guy was it.
But you cannot coach a genius, it's impossible- M.G. Vassanji
Abdul Salam has no problem reconciling the science of physics with his belief in God, which is interesting and it's not what you usually see. Nurul, when he's asked to explain his connection, and he's asked often, what does he think about this contradictory worldview?
He says that it's two different ways of looking at the universe and they need not talk to each other. I guess maybe that's the best answer because even people who are devout cannot really explain the devotion and I guess people who are agnostic or atheist have some trivial answers, why are there wars and this and that.
But it's just a matter of your own beliefs. He just did his prayers, talked to God, sometimes took some liberties and then he did his physics. When I think about a character like him, for him working with physics is his religion. He's mystic and he's completely absorbed in it and then there's this other world where he does his praise, his dues, because that's how he was brought up.
A lot of people have beliefs because they were brought up that way.
When I think about a character like him, for him working with physics is his religion. He's mystic and he's completely absorbed in it.- M.G. Vassanji
Nurul grows up in a pious home, very devout to the one and only. What does that devotion do for him as he moves his way through life?
He doesn't let it touch him because he was so much absorbed in physics and mathematics. I think there are periods [some would say where] he indulged in whiskey for a short period in his life or sometimes he would indulge in a sausage roll.
Then at the time of the partition when he hears about the bloodshed for a few months he stops believing. But then he comes back to it because of the way you are brought up in childhood, that guilt. I think a lot of Catholics have that, they cannot completely let go.
I suspect many people will learn as they read this book that the physics world is a hotbed of this competition and jealousy and backstabbing. Real Housewives would pale in comparison to the infighting in this world. Can you tell us about that?
Generally physicists are not like that and not to the extent that biologists are. In physics, I think it's just what you do that stands out for itself. But in this case, when I was doing my research on Salam, the real physicist, I discovered that there was one guy in England whose whole life ambition was to attack Salam. He said he's a fraud, he's a populist, he's lying and so on.
There was another physicist in Holland, I think, who seemed to make it a point to sort of ignore Salam, he would put him in a footnote. Whereas the guy who would make the discovery with him, Steven Weinberg, he put his photo on the front page. So I thought that there's something going on about Salam and you have to remember he was the only brown guy there, he was very gregarious and he was not put down by anybody because he was a genius.
You cannot put down a genius. So he must have met some of your enemies like that.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
