The following version of this book was used to create the guide: D’Adamo, Francesco. Iqbal (Ann Leonori trans). Alladin, 2005.

Iqbal is a work of fiction, but it is based on the life of Iqbal Masih. It is set entirely in the country of Pakistan, primarily outside the city of Lahore. When the novel opens, a young girl named Fatima and other children are forced laborers in the carpet factory of a man named Hussein. They work from sun up until after the sun goes down. While Fatima has never been chained up, other children are when they misbehave. Some are even chained to their looms overnight. A sense of despair permeates the atmosphere.

Hussein makes a show, every night, of erasing a tic mark from each child’s slate. When the tics have all been erased, the children are free to go home to their families. The children see the tics being erased, but they also know that the slate never becomes clearer and nobody ever actually goes home. The children are bonded in this way because their parents needed to borrow from money lenders, and the children are sold into bondage until that debt is paid off. While these children work in a carpet factory, other bonded laborers work in farm fields or in brick factories. Only children can work in carpet factories, however, because their fingers are more nimble than those of adults.

After Fatima has been at the factory for about three years, a boy named Iqbal is brought in. He is chained from the beginning, and he has been sold numerous times. The children do not know why he has suffered these fates, but they soon come to realize that he believes they can achieve freedom and that he is not willing to wait until he will supposedly be released. He is quite skilled as a carpet maker, and he makes rugs that are more elaborate than those the other children make. His first act of defiance is to destroy the rug he made before Hussein can sell it. This lands him in the Tomb for a number of days. The children sneak out and bring him bread and water every night.

At another point, Iqbal manages to escape from the factory. When he is out in the city, he hears a man talk about the Liberation Front, and he is inspired to know that there are people who want to stop the illegal practice of bonded labor. He goes to the police to tell them about Hussein’s factory with the belief that they will help him free his friends. In the end, the police bring him back to Hussein in exchange for money, and Iqbal is harshly punished.

Iqbal escapes one last time, and this time he goes to the Liberation Front. He knows how to find it because another girl, Maria, taught all the children how to read, and they can now read about where to find the offices of the Liberation Front. He gets the help of Eshan and others in the liberation movement, and they bring the police, get Hussein arrested, and liberate the children.

The children are brought to the offices of the Front where they are cleaned and deloused. The children are then sent home once their parents are found. Iqbal goes home but returns to the Front, wishing to help in a direct manner by going undercover and finding out what is really going on in factories. Fatima stays at the Front longer than other children because they have a difficult time finding her family.

Iqbal finds out that he has been awarded a large sum of money in America for his work and that he is called to speak there as well as in Sweden. He reluctantly goes because Eshan convinces him that he can do more help for the movement if he goes to school and becomes a lawyer than he could doing the work he is doing now. After he leaves on his trip, Fatima goes to live with her siblings, and her brother plans to take them to Europe. Eventually Fatima learns that Iqbal has been killed by those looking to stop his work. Maria plans to become a lawyer, and she asks Fatima to tell Iqbal’s story.