King of Malaysia Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin conferred honorary doctorate degree on famous scientist professor Dr Attaur Rehman for his remarkable services in science and higher education. The king conferred an honorary doctorate degree on Professor Rehman on Thursday in Malaysia during a convocation ceremony held at the University of Technology Malaysia, said a press release issued by COSMTECH.
The COMSTECH is a science and technology cooperation agency of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is being headed by Rehman. According to the press release, the degree was awarded to Professor Atta in appreciation of his extraordinary and outstanding scientific achievements in the field of organic chemistry and natural products chemistry and for his immense contribution to the development of science and technology education in Pakistan and the Muslim world. It said that the King of Malaysia also praised Rehman’s services in Science and higher education.
“During the occasion, Rehman also addressed the Malaysian higher education leaders and informed the academia there how Pakistan made rapid progress in the fields of science and higher education from the year 2000 to 2008, until Atta was science minister and then head of the higher education commission,” the press release said. Rehman has been conferred honorary doctorate degrees by many universities including Cambridge University in 1987, Coventry University in 2007, Bradford University in 2010 and Asian Institute of Technology the same year. He has, on his credit, 843 publications in organic chemistry including 663 research publications, 18 patents, 103 books and 59 chapters in books. He is the first scientist from the Muslim world to have won the prestigious UNESCO Science Prize in 1999 in the 35-year-old history of the prize. He was elected as Fellow of Royal Society, London in July 2006 thereby becoming one of the four scientists from the Muslim world to have ever won this honour, conferred by the prestigious 350-year-old scientific society.
