Salman Ahmad at Queens College. His groundbreaking band Junoon has sold more than 25 million albums since its debut in 1991.
Pakistani pop star Salman Ahmad has retuned his guitar - for teaching at Queens College.
The lead singer and guitarist for the groundbreaking South Asian band Junoon, Ahmad is an artist in residence at the Flushing campus this spring, where he is working to bridge the culture chasm between Islam and the West with song.
"Music, poetry and art are the best conversations to have between cultures," said Ahmad, a Lahore native who attended Rockland County's Tappan Zee High School. "I'm trying to let these kids absorb without lectures.
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Ahmad's band has sold more than 25 million albums since its 1991 debut.
One opportunity to play music rather than lecture came last week when Ahmad invited the Illumination Band, a Philadelphia-based bluegrass group inspired by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, to perform.
Accompanied for several songs by Ahmad - who sported a ponytail and a fur hat - the five-man band took the stage at Lefrak Concert Hall last Tuesday.
"I learned that every culture has the same language of music," gushed student Zahra Rafique, 24, of the spiritual performance.
"In my country, [Ahmad] is very famous," said Rafique, 24, a Pakistani who moved to Jamaica as a teen and wears a hijab scarf. "I had to take his class.
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Ahmad is teaching a 42-student class, "Islamic Music and Culture of South Asia," as part of the college's high-profile series
of courses, "The Middle East and America: Clash of Civilizations or Meeting of the Minds?"
He was invited to teach at the campus by Queens College Prof. Mark Rosenblum when the two met at President Clinton's annual Global Initiative meeting last fall.
"To have a rock star who is a Muslim from South Asia is a boon to us," Rosenblum said.
Rosenblum's program is designed to spark cross-cultural dialogue on the campus, which boasts one of the most diverse student bodies in the city and is more than 15% Muslim, Rosenblum said.
While Ahmad's celebrity status - he is the United Nations goodwill ambassador for HIV/AIDS - got him on Rosenblum's radar, it was his intimate knowledge of Western and Muslim cultures that lead to his first teaching gig.
Ahmad, 43, spent his junior high school and high school years in Rockland County after his father, who works for Pakistan International Airlines, moved the family when Ahmad was 11.
A budding doctor who played the guitar on the side, Ahmad returned to Pakistan in the 1980s to attend medical school. It was while studying to become a heart surgeon that Ahmad appeared on a Pakistani TV show similar to "American Idol," and got his first break in the music business.
Influenced by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Ahmad traded in his stethoscope for a guitar.
"A lot of times, the class becomes a jam session," said Ahmad's student Chrissy Karabakakis, who is Greek-American. "He's very diverse; we listen to all different types of music.
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