Abdul Ahad Mohmand: The First to Carry the Holy Quran into Space

Abdul Ahad Mohmand made history in 1988 as the first person to carry the Holy Quran into space, combining a landmark achievement in spaceflight with a deeply personal expression of faith.

Mohmand travelled to the Soviet Union's Mir space station aboard the Soyuz TM-6 spacecraft, launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 29 August 1988 alongside Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Polyakov. His flight was carried out under the Soviet Interkosmos programme, which enabled the USSR's allies and partners to send citizens into space.

During the nine-day mission, he carried a copy of the Holy Quran into orbit and recited verses from it, becoming the first person to do so in space. He also became the first Afghan citizen to journey beyond Earth, and the fourth Muslim in space, after Saudi Arabia's Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, Syria's Muhammed Faris and Musa Manarov.

When Mohmand spoke to his mother by telephone from orbit, Pashto became the fourth language officially spoken in space. During the flight he also photographed Afghan territory, producing some of the earliest recorded views of the country from beyond the atmosphere, and spoke by telephone with then-president Najibullah.

Born in 1959 in the Andar district of Ghazni province, Mohmand graduated from the Kabul Polytechnic Institute before training at a Soviet military aviation school. He returned to serve in the Afghan Air Force, where he rose to the rank of captain, and was selected for the mission from among some 400 volunteers.

The joint Soviet-Afghan flight, agreed between Moscow and Kabul in 1987, carried significant symbolic weight, taking place in the final months of the Soviet-Afghan War as Soviet forces prepared to withdraw from the country.

Mohmand later settled in Germany with his family after leaving Afghanistan in 1992. He died in Stuttgart in June 2026 at the age of 67 following a prolonged illness, remembered as one of his country's most prominent scientific and historical figures.