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out the problem. I didn’t agree. ‘We can sit by and hope the government will help but they won’t. If I can help support one or two children and another family supports one or two then between us we can help them all.’ I knew it was pointless appealing to Musharraf. In my experience, if my father couldn’t help with matters like these, there was only one option. I wrote a letter to God. ‘Dear God,’ I wrote, ‘I know you see everything, but there are so many things that maybe, sometimes, things get missed, particularly now with the bombing in Afghanistan. But I don’t think you would be happy if you saw the children on my road living on a rubbish dump. God, give me strength and courage and make me perfect because I want to make this world perfect. Malala.’ The problem was I did not know how to get it to him. Somehow I thought it needed to go deep into the earth, so first I buried it in the garden. Then I thought it would get spoilt, so I put it in a plastic bag. But that didn’t seem much use. We like to put sacred texts in flowing waters, so I rolled it up, tied it to a piece of wood, placed a dandelion on top and floated it in the stream which flows into the Swat River. Surely God would find it there.
7 The Mufti Who Tried to Close Our School JUST IN FRONT of the school on Khushal Street, where I was born, was the house of a tall handsome mullah and his family. His name was Ghulamullah and he called himself a mufti, which means he is an Islamic scholar and authority on Islamic law, though my father complains that anyone with a turban can call themselves a maulana or mufti. The school was doing well, and my father was building an impressive reception with an arched entrance in the boy’s high school. For the first time my mother could buy nice clothes and even send out for food as she had dreamed of doing back in the village. But all this time the mufti was watching. He watched the girls going in and out of our school every day and became angry, particularly as some of the girls were teenagers. ‘That maulana has a bad eye on us,’ said my father one day. He was right. Shortly afterwards the mufti went to the woman who owned the school premises and said, ‘Ziauddin is running a haram school in your building and bringing shame on the mohalla [neighbourhood]. These girls should be in purdah.’ He told her, ‘Take this building back from him and I will rent it for my madrasa. If you do this you will get paid now and also receive a reward in the next world.’ She refused and her son came to my father in secret. ‘This maulana is starting a campaign against you,’ he warned. ‘We won’t give him the building but be careful.’ My father was angry. ‘Just as we say, “Nim hakim khatrai jan” – “Half a doctor is a danger to one’s life,” so, “Nim mullah khatrai iman” – “A mullah who is not fully learned is a danger to faith”,’ he said. I am proud that our country was created as the world’s first Muslim homeland, but we still don’t agree on what this means. The Quran teaches us sabar – patience – but often it feels that we have forgotten the word and think Islam means women sitting at home in purdah or wearing burqas while men do jihad. We have many strands of Islam in Pakistan. Our founder Jinnah wanted the rights of Muslims in India to be recognised, but the majority of people in India were Hindu. It was as if there was a feud between two brothers and they agreed to live in different houses. So British India was divided in August 1947, and an independent Muslim state was born. It could hardly have been a bloodier beginning. Millions of Muslims crossed from India, and Hindus travelled in the other direction. Almost two million of them were killed trying to cross the new border. Many were slaughtered on trains which arrived at Lahore and Delhi full of bloodied corpses. My own grandfather narrowly escaped death in the riots when his train was attacked by Hindus on his way home from Delhi, where he had been studying. Now we are a country of 180 million and more than 96 per cent are Muslim. We also have around two million Christians and more than two million Ahmadis, who say they are Muslims though our government says they are not. Sadly those minority communities are often attacked. Jinnah had lived in London as a young man and trained as a barrister. He wanted a land of
Page 3: I AM MALALA The Girl Who Stood Up f
Page 6 and 7: Contents Cover Title Page Dedicatio
Page 8 and 9: Prologue: The Day my World Changed
Page 10 and 11: we were little and been friends sin
Page 12 and 13: PART ONE Before the Taliban Sorey s
Page 14 and 15: Kabul. In high school I read some S
Page 16 and 17: From the rooftop I watched the moun
Page 18 and 19: originally from Kandahar and are on
Page 20 and 21: 2 My Father the Falcon I ALWAYS KNE
Page 22 and 23: girl who was raped and become pregn
Page 24 and 25: popular and passionate speaker that
Page 26 and 27: 3 Growing up in a School MY MOTHER
Page 28 and 29: hidden away as in his own village.
Page 30 and 31: After three months Naeem had had en
Page 32 and 33: slept and one which was a small off
Page 34 and 35: 4 The Village IN OUR TRADITION on t
Page 36 and 37: I loved the gloopy honey, which we
Page 38 and 39: speak to men who were not their clo
Page 40 and 41: said. ‘You should have set an exa
Page 42 and 43: the plane even though it had 200 ot
Page 44 and 45: 6 Children of the Rubbish Mountain
Page 46 and 47: called him ‘lethal’ in public.
Page 50 and 51: tolerance. Our people often quote t
Page 52 and 53: woman governor of the state bank an
Page 54 and 55: Then there were more attacks. The A
Page 56 and 57: gone. Places we had visited like Ba
Page 58 and 59: PART TWO The Valley of Death Rabab
Page 60 and 61: and if people didn’t stop they wo
Page 62 and 63: walls and levees to protect it from
Page 64 and 65: through a river where the road had
Page 66 and 67: stations. The militants would enter
Page 68 and 69: father and was very excited that sh
Page 70 and 71: Musharraf blamed Benazir’s death
Page 72 and 73: The army action at the end of 2007
Page 74 and 75: One day I went on Geo, which is one
Page 76 and 77: hospital could not cope with all th
Page 78 and 79: If they want every person in the wo
Page 80 and 81: We Pashtuns know the stone of reven
Page 82 and 83: to know the kind of things Hai Kaka
Page 84 and 85: We had a special assembly that fina
Page 86 and 87: now.
Page 88 and 89: news. The gunfire was in celebratio
Page 90 and 91: he was sitting in a government offi
Page 92 and 93: 15 Leaving the Valley LEAVING THE V
Page 94 and 95: million of us were fleeing Swat and
Page 96 and 97: electricity, gas . . . but your cou
Page 98 and 99:
16 The Valley of Sorrows IT ALL SEE
Page 100 and 101:
Taliban leadership who were in cust
Page 102 and 103:
teachers at the Khushal School dema
Page 104 and 105:
many of the buffaloes. The villager
Page 106 and 107:
17 Praying to Be Tall WHEN I WAS th
Page 108 and 109:
passionately. ‘Fazlullah is the c
Page 110 and 111:
just sneak in under our radar? And
Page 112 and 113:
took a photo of her and vowed I wou
Page 114 and 115:
flooded by millions of Muslim refug
Page 116 and 117:
the same thing. My father asked,
Page 118 and 119:
told my mother. He read it out. Dea
Page 120 and 121:
My father was convinced the Taliban
Page 122 and 123:
20 Who is Malala? ONE MORNING IN la
Page 124 and 125:
When everyone was ready he took Mis
Page 126 and 127:
21 ‘God, I entrust her to you’
Page 128 and 129:
neighbourhood. My mother was astoni
Page 130 and 131:
one dignitary comes to your home. B
Page 132 and 133:
General Kayani told him he should s
Page 134 and 135:
22 Journey into the Unknown I WAS S
Page 136 and 137:
It was in one of Yaseem’s newspap
Page 138 and 139:
that reassured them I was still ali
Page 140 and 141:
23 ‘The Girl Shot in the Head, Bi
Page 142 and 143:
soon,’ he promised. ‘Now have a
Page 144 and 145:
She told me that I had been shot on
Page 146 and 147:
nurse, who would sit and hold my ha
Page 148 and 149:
24 ‘They have snatched her smile
Page 150 and 151:
I was taken into theatre on 11 Nove
Page 152 and 153:
UK. My father was relieved as he wa
Page 154 and 155:
EPILOGUE One Child, One Teacher, On
Page 156 and 157:
But like my mother I am lonely. It
Page 158 and 159:
that the good thing about the Talib
Page 160 and 161:
Glossary aba - affectionate Pashto
Page 162 and 163:
Acknowledgements The last year has
Page 164 and 165:
Important Events in Pakistan and Sw
Page 166 and 167:
A note on the Malala Fund My goal i
Page 168 and 169:
My father’s friend Hidayatullah h
Page 170 and 171:
My father’s childhood home
Page 172 and 173:
Reading with my brother Khushal
Page 174 and 175:
A school picnic
Page 176 and 177:
At the beginning, people gave lots
Page 178 and 179:
Making a speech to honour the peopl
Page 180 and 181:
Painting at school
Page 182 and 183:
In our garden in Mingora, building
Page 184 and 185:
At school reading a story: ‘All T
Page 186 and 187:
My father and the elders of Swat
Page 188 and 189:
The bus where I was shot
Page 190 and 191:
First days in the Birmingham hospit
Page 192 and 193:
Our headmistress, Madam Maryam (lef
Page 194 and 195:
Sir Amjad, head of the boys’ scho
Page 196 and 197:
Speaking at the UN on my sixteenth
Page 198 and 199:
Here we are outside our new home in
Page 200:
Copyright A Weidenfeld & Nicolson e
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