White Teeth

by

Zadie Smith

Magid is the older of Alsana and Samad’s twins—despite being born only two minutes before his brother, he’s more mature, measured, and intellectual than Millat is. Samad sends Magid to Bangladesh as a nine-year-old in order to introduce him to an Eastern upbringing, away from Western vice and corruption. Yet instead of becoming pious, Magid becomes an atheist and a scientist, interested in helping the East to develop like the West. Marcus Chalfen and Magid begin to correspond about Marcus’s FutureMouse project, and when Magid returns to England as a teenager, the two become colleagues, working on the experiment together. Initially, Millat is put off by his brother’s calm, rational demeanor, though the brothers eventually reconcile (after they are both mistaken as the would-be assassins at the FutureMouse press conference). Magid, like Millat, may or may not be the father of Irie Jones’s child.

Magid Iqbal Quotes in White Teeth

The White Teeth quotes below are all either spoken by Magid Iqbal or refer to Magid Iqbal. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family Ties Theme Icon
).
Chapter 6 Quotes

Magid really wanted to be in some other family. He wanted to own cats and not cockroaches, he wanted his mother to make the music of the cello, not the sound of the sewing machine; he wanted to have a trellis of flowers growing up one side of the house instead of the ever-growing pile of other people’s rubbish; he wanted a piano in the hallway in place of the broken door off cousin Kurshed’s car; he wanted to go on biking holidays to France, not day-trips to Blackpool to visit aunties; he wanted the floor of his room to be shiny wood, not the orange-and-green swirled carpet left over from the restaurant; he wanted his father to be a doctor, not a one-handed waiter; and this month Magid had converted all these desires into a wish to join in with the Harvest Festival like Mark Smith would.

Related Characters: Millat Iqbal, Magid Iqbal
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Worst of all was the anger inside [Millat]. Not the righteous anger of a man of God, but the seething, violent anger of a gangster, a juvenile delinquent, determined to prove himself, determined to run the clan, determined to beat the rest. And if the game was God, if the game was a fight against the West, against the presumptions of Western science, against his brother or Marcus Chalfen, he was determined to win it. Millat stubbed his fag out against the banister. It pissed him off that these were not pious thoughts. But they were in the right ball-park, weren’t they? He had the fundamentals, didn’t he? Clean living, praying (five times a day without fail), fasting, working for the cause, spreading the message?

Related Characters: Millat Iqbal, Magid Iqbal, Marcus Chalfen
Page Number: 369
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire White Teeth LitChart as a printable PDF.
White Teeth PDF

Magid Iqbal Quotes in White Teeth

The White Teeth quotes below are all either spoken by Magid Iqbal or refer to Magid Iqbal. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Family Ties Theme Icon
).
Chapter 6 Quotes

Magid really wanted to be in some other family. He wanted to own cats and not cockroaches, he wanted his mother to make the music of the cello, not the sound of the sewing machine; he wanted to have a trellis of flowers growing up one side of the house instead of the ever-growing pile of other people’s rubbish; he wanted a piano in the hallway in place of the broken door off cousin Kurshed’s car; he wanted to go on biking holidays to France, not day-trips to Blackpool to visit aunties; he wanted the floor of his room to be shiny wood, not the orange-and-green swirled carpet left over from the restaurant; he wanted his father to be a doctor, not a one-handed waiter; and this month Magid had converted all these desires into a wish to join in with the Harvest Festival like Mark Smith would.

Related Characters: Millat Iqbal, Magid Iqbal
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Worst of all was the anger inside [Millat]. Not the righteous anger of a man of God, but the seething, violent anger of a gangster, a juvenile delinquent, determined to prove himself, determined to run the clan, determined to beat the rest. And if the game was God, if the game was a fight against the West, against the presumptions of Western science, against his brother or Marcus Chalfen, he was determined to win it. Millat stubbed his fag out against the banister. It pissed him off that these were not pious thoughts. But they were in the right ball-park, weren’t they? He had the fundamentals, didn’t he? Clean living, praying (five times a day without fail), fasting, working for the cause, spreading the message?

Related Characters: Millat Iqbal, Magid Iqbal, Marcus Chalfen
Page Number: 369
Explanation and Analysis: