On August 14, 1947, Pakistan was founded as an Islamic nation and a refuge for Muslims; India was created the following day. The division of British India was rapidly followed by massive communal warfare, with tens of thousands of Muslims slaughtered in riots as they tried to leave for their newly created state. Khan was 11 years old at the time, and the violence was seared into his memory. His family watched in horror as Muslims flooded into their neighborhood in Bhopal, still considered a sanctuary in those bitter days, bringing spine-chilling tales of atrocities committed by Hindus. Khan later described having seen trains packed with the corpses of Muslims killed in the sectarian fighting.

After Khan finished high school in 1952, Abdul Ghafoor decided that there was no future for his youngest son in India, which he believed discriminated against the Muslims who had remained behind rather than immigrating to Pakistan. At 16, Khan bid his parents goodbye and set off for West Pakistan by train.

But Khan never really left India behind. Often, in later years, he recounted the violence and discrimination he had endured as a Muslim, invariably beginning with his own journey out of harm’s way by train.

“I was alone,” Khan would recall in interviews with his biographer and Pakistani journalists. “Luckily there were a number of Muslim families traveling with us. The attitude of the Indian police and the railway authorities toward these shattered families was extremely hostile, degrading, and insulting. The mischievous behavior will always remain fresh in my memory. They snatched every valuable thing from these poor people.” As the teenager huddled in the jammed train car, he clutched his meager belongings to his thin chest. All around him, women tried to hush the cries of babies and children as men suffered the indignities of departure in silent anger. Khan carried little of value—his beloved Mogul-history books and a gold pen given to him by his brother upon graduation. Just before the train arrived at its last stop near the border, a policeman reached a fat hand into the boy’s shirt pocket and plucked out his treasured pen. Khan was helpless to resist, humiliated by his loss and his weakness. The incident, seemingly minor compared with the tens of thousands of deaths, was a transforming event. The theft framed his view of Indians for a lifetime.

Khan graduated from college in 1957, landing his first job as a government inspector of weights and measures in Karachi. He soon discovered the job was a dead end, leaving the ambitious young man restless and unsure about where his future lay. In 1961, Khan received a government grant to study abroad, resigned from his job, and booked a flight to Düsseldorf, West Germany, where he planned to learn German and enroll in a technical university.

A few days before leaving, a friend took Khan to visit a fortune-teller. Though Khan considered himself a man of science, like many Pakistanis he was intrigued by the ancient ritual. The old man took Khan’s right hand, traced the lines on his upturned palm, and murmured for a minute. Then he said, “I’m surprised you are still here. You should be abroad.” The palmist predicted that Khan would leave Pakistan soon and that his initial studies would be difficult, but he reassured the young man that he would fall in love, achieve great success, and then return to Pakistan. “Here in Pakistan, you will do outstanding work in your field, which will bring you a big name.”

Khan's first two years at FDO were undistinguished. By 38, he was a respected midlevel scientist who moved easily among his colleagues. His destiny changed on May 18, 1974, the day that India detonated its first atomic weapon. Word of the nuclear test stirred Khan’s patriotism, and he renewed conversations he had had with Henny before they married about his desire to go home one day.

Providence seemed to offer him an opportunity in June 1974, when two Pakistani nuclear scientists arrived at FDO. Khan sought them out as they were having tea in the cafeteria. The two visitors were surprised when he approached them and started speaking Urdu—they had no idea that a fellow countryman was working in one of Europe’s most advanced centrifuge-development programs. Khan was eager to impress the scientists, hopeful that they might open the way for him to go home. Boasting about his academic background and the work he was engaged in at FDO, he told them that he was convinced India’s nuclear test foretold the death of his country unless it developed its own bomb. Describing the incident to his biographer, Khan said that he wanted nothing more than to return to Pakistan and work to build a nuclear weapon to save the country.