Iqbal

By Francesco D'Adamo

When young Iqbal is sold into slavery at a carpet factory, his arrival changes everything for the other overworked and abused chidren there. It is Iqbal who explains to them that despite their master's promises, he plans on keeping them as his slaves indefinetely. But it is also Iqbal who inspires the other children to look to a future free from toil...and is brave enough to show them how to get there.
This moving fictionalized account of the real Iqbal Masih is told through the voice of Fatima, a young Pakistani girl whose life is changed by Iqbal's courage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Release date: May 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9781439106785

Francesco D'Adamo

Francesco D'Adamo is well-known for his adult books in the tradition of Italian noir fiction. He began writing fiction for young adults to much foreign acclaim in 1999. Iqbal is his third novel for young adults and his first to be published in the U.S. D'Adamo lives in Milan, Italy.

Book preview

Introduction

All over the world and throughout history, children have been a source of labor. They have always had their share of work. In homes or in fields, they have contributed to the survival of their families or to the good of the community. In countries moving from agriculture to manufacturing, child labor is considered essential to successful development, and children have been present in virtually every field, workshop, and factory.

Today, more than two hundred million children between the ages of five and seventeen are economically active in the world. About seventy-three million of these are under ten years of age, and almost six million children are working in conditions of forced and bonded labor. Bonded labor is a system in which a person works for a preestablished period of time to pay off a debt. Many of America’s early colonists started out as indentured servants, receiving their passage to the colonies in return for a number of years of labor, after which they acquired their liberty and a grant of land.

In many countries, bonded child labor is considered an indispensable part of the economic system. When families are in debt, they rent, or bond, their children, who can be as young as four or five, to work for masters, who have complete control over the children’s lives until the debt is paid, and who can even send the children on to other masters. In Pakistan, where Iqbal takes place, industries such as brick-making and carpet-making depend on child labor. The brick-making industry employs whole families, small children working alongside their parents in dangerous conditions.

Carpet-making is particularly dependent on children and their manual dexterity: small fingers can be taught to work quickly to tie the thousands of knots necessary to make a carpet. Working conditions are usually very poor. The children, often underfed, work from dawn to dusk, squatting for long hours on low benches in front of their looms, breathing dust and lint. Many of them are chained to their looms. There is no time for play and little time for rest. They are invisible to the outside world.

Iqbal is a fictional account about a real person, Iqbal Masih, and his crusade to liberate bonded laborers. The narrator is a young girl, Fatima, whose life was forever changed by his courage.

One

Yes, I knew Iqbal. I think about him often. I like to. I feel I owe it to him. You see, for Iqbal I was not invisible. I existed, and he made me free. So here is his story. As I remember it. As I knew him.

The house of our master, Hussain Khan, was in the outskirts of Lahore, not far from the dusty, dry countryside where flocks of sheep from the north grazed.

It was a big house, half stone, half sheet iron, facing a dirty courtyard containing a well, an old Toyota van, and a canopy of reeds that protected the bales of cotton and wool. Across the courtyard from the house was a long building, the carpet factory, where fourteen of us worked. We had all been bonded to Hussain Khan to pay off debts our families had contracted with local moneylenders. The building had a tin roof and a dirt floor, so it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

In the corner at the back of the courtyard, half-hidden by thorn bushes and weeds, you could just see a rusty iron door. Behind the door was a short, steep stairway that led down to the Tomb.

Work began half an hour before dawn, when the master’s wife, dressed in her bathrobe and slippers, crossed the courtyard in the uncertain light of the fading night and brought us a round loaf of chapati bread and some dal, lentil soup. We all ate together, greedily dipping our bread into the large bowl on the ground, while we chatted incessantly of the dreams we had had during the night.

My grandmother and my mother used to say that dreams come from an unknown area of heaven, far far away, and they descend to earth when men call them. They can bring pain or comfort, joy or desperation, or sometimes they have no meaning and bring nothing. But it’s not necessarily true that only bad men receive evil dreams and silly men empty ones. Who are we, after all, to understand the ways of heaven? What’s really bad, my grandmother would say, is to receive no dreams. It’s like not receiving the warmth of someone who is thinking of us even if they are far away.

I hadn’t dreamed for months. I suspect many of us had stopped dreaming, but we were afraid to admit it: We felt so alone in the mornings. So we invented them, and they were always lovely dreams, full of light and color and memories of home. We competed to see who could invent the most fantastic ones, speaking very fast with full mouths, until the mistress said, Enough already! Enough!

Then we were allowed to pass—one by one—behind the filthy curtain that hid the Turkish toilet at the back of the big room where our looms and benches stood in rows. The first ones to go were those who had slept chained by their ankles to their looms. The master called them numskulls, because they worked slowly and poorly. They got the colored yarns mixed up or made mistakes in the pattern (the worst possible error), or they cried too loudly over the blisters on their fingers.

The numskulls weren’t very bright. Everybody else knew that all you had to do is take the knife we used for working and cut open the blister. The liquid drips out and it hurts for a while, but in time the skin grows back tougher, so you don’t feel anything anymore. You just have to know how to bear the wait. Those of us who weren’t chained sometimes felt sorry for the numskulls, but sometimes we teased them. Usually they were the new workers, just arrived, who hadn’t learned that the only way we could become free was to work very hard and very fast, to erase each and every line on our small slates, until there were none left and we could return home.

Like the others, I had my own little slate hanging above the loom I worked on.

The day I arrived, many years before, Hussain Khan had taken a clean slate and had made some signs on it. This is your name.

Yes, sir.

This is your slate. Nobody can touch it. Do you understand?

Yes, sir.

Then he drew many other lines, one next to the other, as straight as the hair on the back of a frightened dog, and every group of four had a line through it.

Can you count? the master asked.

Almost up to ten, I responded.

Look, Hussain Khan said, this is your debt. Every line is a rupee. I’ll give you a rupee for every day you work. That’s fair. Nobody would pay you more. Ask anyone you want: Everyone will say that Hussain Khan is a good and fair master who gives you what you deserve. And every day at sunset, I’ll erase one of these lines, right in front of your eyes. You’ll feel proud, and your parents will feel proud, because it will be the fruit of your work. Do you understand?

Yes, sir, I answered again, but it wasn’t true. I hadn’t understood. I studied those mysterious lines, thick as trees in a forest, but I couldn’t distinguish my name from the debt. It was as though they were the same thing.

When all the lines are erased, Hussain Khan added, when you see this slate wiped completely clean, then you’ll be free and you’ll be able to return home.

I never saw a clean slate, neither

Reviews for Iqbal

[feleciak-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

IqbalTouching 5 starsThis novel is fictionalized account of Iqbal Masih's time as a child laborer. Iqbal's bravery and determination to be free, freed not only him but thousands of other children in bonded labor. Heartbreaking and well worth recommending. Iqbal Masih's true life story can be read in "The Little Hero: One Boy's Fight for Freedom- Iqbal Masih's Story."

[jennybeast · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Child slavery is a rough topic, so I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book, but my main objections to it are the voice, which is not particularly believable as the voice of a child, and the fact that it is unrelentingly depressing. I think it's fair for it to be unrelentingly depressing given the subject matter, and maybe other people would find Iqbal's story inspiring. This particular book just really didn't work for me.

[tracy_919446806 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story is told impeccably. I couldn't put it down and tells the story of someone we all should be familiar with

[YOLANDA VELAZQUEZ · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book on perseverance! It teaches students how not to give up!

[rafael · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's really beautiful and sad at the same time and I wish for more people to read this inspirational novel .

[sabdelaz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Iqbal is a young Pakistani boy who is very influential and experienced. He was a slave who would work of the carpet Mafia who kept poor kids and tied them t the looms to make carpets. These kids would work in horrendous conditions, with little sanitation and much pollution. Anyone of the children who rebelled against the master who was in charge of these child workers would go in the "tomb", sometime for days where you could barely breathe and see things because of the darkness. Told from a perspective of a friend, Iqbal tries to escape and free the kid slaves of the carpet place. Only to be taken in again. He ended up being murdered at thirteen years old by the carpet mafia while playing in the streets. Kids started to imitate him around the country . A good book for Middle school students to teach them how fortunate they are to be at where they are now.Its also historical in that it relates to the Industrial Revolution in Britain where kids were employed also in bad conditions for low ways. This novel classifies as Realistic Historical fiction .

[labfs39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In real life, Iqbal Masih was a young Pakistani boy who escaped child slavery in a carpet factory and worked to help free other exploited children. This short historical novel is written from the perspective of a young girl who works in the same carpet factory as Iqbal and becomes his friend. Like many children in Pakistan, Fatima is indentured by her family and has no hope of ever paying off the debt. Her despair and hope are beautifully described in an analogy where every morning she stretches toward a window that brings in the scent of the almond tree outside. She hopes to someday be able to reach the window and pull herself up for a look. Perhaps she is 1/4 of an inch closer? No, probably not. Then Iqbal is transferred to her Master and begins working at a loom near hers. They become friends, and Fatima becomes aware that Iqbal is not like her and the other children. He is not afraid. Or rather, he is afraid, but stands up for them anyway.I was afraid to begin reading Iqbal because the topic of child exploitation is so emotionally difficult. But instead of despair, D'Adamo creates a beautiful mood of childish innocence and hope that transcends the passivity of some characters and the greed of others. I found myself wanting more: both of the delicate language and of the story. I would like to read more by this new-to-me author, and the book's bibliography provides some opportunities to learn more about the real Iqbal Masih.

[cameling_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When one hears of courageous acts, or determined plans to help others, one often thinks of adults in the role. Not because children are selfish or weak, but more because we think of children as innocent, care-free and to be protected.So when children are in danger, one expects the saviors to be fiercely determined adults. This book, narrated though through the voice of a fictitious girl, sheds some light onto an amazing child, who took the world by storm in his determination to protect and rescue his peers.Iqbal Masih is a true hero. A mere child, sold to one of Pakistan's many carpet makers, he stands apart from the other scrawny, half-starved, beaten and overworked children, some of whom were chained to their looms, in the factory in his determination to escape and to help others in the factory escape from their miserable conditions.While reading of his acts of bravery, one forgets that he is a mere child until a simple event reminds us as sharply and clearly as a sword slicing off one of our fingers. The people he and most children assumed they could trust, the policemen, betrayed them with their corruption and inhumanity. But in spite of everything that one would think would destroy a child's soul, no matter how determined he was, Iqbal made good his promise to himself and to the other children in the factory. This little boy put himself in danger time and time again to save the other children in other brick-making or carpet factories... while he went to school for the first time in his life. Through the Bonded Labor Liberation Front who helped rescue him and the children in his factory, he gained their respect and in a short time, he was invited to step into the international spotlight to appeal against bonded child slavery. But he didn't stop there, he went on to be the voice of all other child slaves in Pakistan until his voice was silenced by those who loved profit over humanity. He was 13 when he was shot..... by an unknown adult in a car with dark tinted windows. It's a little book with a huge impact... just like Iqbal Masih.

[whisper1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another great recommendation from Stasia. When finishing a book such as this, I'm reminded why I love to read! Books open a world of information and a few pages of a previous unknown subject can lead to the craving to learn more and more and more.Iqbal is a fictionalized novel based on a real-life young man who made a tremendous difference in Pakistan and drew a bright light on the dark, dirty, despicable issue of child slave labor.Iqbal Masih was a child slave sold by his mother to pay family debts. It was not uncommon for money lenders to prey on helpless poor people, lending them amounts they were not able to repay. In return, children were taken and worked (sometimes to death) under barbaric conditions.At the age of five, Iqbal was enslaved in a carpet factory, chained to a loom, where, like many, he worked night and day with little food, little light and no contact with the outside world.Iqbal escaped twice, once he was returned at the hands of corrupt policemen who received bribes. Successfully escaping the second time he sought help from the Bonded Labor Liberation Front who helped to free him and many.Sadly, in 1995, at the age of 12, he was murdered . He is indeed a hero!And now, because of this book, I'm off on a new journey to learn as much as possible, not only about Iqbal, but about child labor in Pakistan and throughout the world.

[notoriousspinks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Iqbal Masih, a true martyr and real hero, proved to the world that age truly is just a number. Coming from a region where it is normal to sacrifice children in efforts to pay off family debts, Iqbal refused to settle for this life. Iqbal, a fictional novel narrated by Fatima, a child slave owned by Hassan Khan to work in his carpet factory. Life at the carpet factory was the same routine daily until Iqbal arrived. On the outside he looked like a regular Pakastani child servant sold into bondage to pay off his families debt. But on the inside he was a brave young man ready to fight for his freedom. Iqbal had an energy about him that let the other children know that it was okay to dream even after his failed attempt at escape. He knew he would be free and made all the other children get with the program. Iqbal is one of those novels that force you to step outside of your little box and realize that children all over the world are living in extreme circumstances and it should not be so. Iqbal is truly a hero. While reading this novel I thought often that he had more gumption than many adults. Too many times we sit back and allow injustices to happen because we don't want to cause problems or because we don't want to interfere. This book is a quick read and designed for kids ages 8-12.

[baileyi13 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This Book Is about a kid who is sold into a child labor slave farm that makes carpets. His parents have done this to pay off their debts. Iqbal quickly realizes that the man who runs the camp intends to keep Iqbal and the rest of the kids forever. The book tells the amazing story of how Iqbal helps all the kids in the camp/factory escape. He shows the world how cruel forced child labor is. He explains how if people just knew what was happening someone would of done something sooner.

[sandsing7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Socially relevant yet accessible to young readers. Kids will be thrown into this realistic world filled with sympathetic characters, and will be even more surprised with they learn it's based on a true story.