Alif Allah Aur Insaan

Main cast

• Meekal Zulfiqar as Shahzeb Shah
• Kubra Khan as Nazneen Malik
• Ushna Shah as Reena Begum
• Shehzad Sheikh as Basit Ali
• Imran Ashraf as Shammo
• Sana Nawaz as Nigar Begum
• Qavi Khan as Baba Sain

Supporting cast

• Usman Peerzada as Hashmat Malik
• Ainy Zaidi as Malkani
• Naeema Khan as Chaman Begum
• Azra Mansoor as Zaitoon
• Nargis Rasheed as Rani's mother
• Omar Shehzad as Shaheer
• Saife Hassan as Rani's father
• Noor-ul-Hassan as Qadir Ali (Dead)
• Farhan Ali Agha as Nawazish Ali
• Hassan Noman as Salma
• Kinza Malik as Razia
• Zahra Shah as Samina
• Nimra Khan as Zimmal
• Ali Ansari as Arsalan
• Fazila Kaiser as Zimmil's mother
• Kaiser Khan Nizamani as Zimmil's father
• Seemi Pasha as Shaheer's mother
• Mahi Baloch as Fiza Bai
• Muhammad Ali Josh as Taimoor

Development

Alif Allah Aur Insaan is developed by Hum TV's senior producer Momina Duraid of MD Productions, the channel hired director Ahson Talish to direct the series.^[4][5] Story of serial is based on Qaisra Hayat's Novel of the same name. Screenplay is also written by Hayat while script composing is done by Muhammad Wasi-ul-Din who is best known for his compositions for channels series Diyar-e-Dil and Mann Mayal. Hayat has previously worked with Momina, when she wrote Saya-e-Dewar Bhi Nahi.^[6]

Song composition is done by Naveed Nashad while background scores are given by MAD Music, lyrics for the OST were penned by the director himself who chose Shafqat Amanat Ali for singing, thus marking Ali's comeback for Hum TV after performing the OST of channels hit series Alvida in 2015. the channel released the first teaser promo on 13 April 2017 and premiered the series on 25 April 2017, it was given the prime slot on 8:00pm airing a weekly episode every Tuesdays.^[5] Under the production, Amir Shehzad and Saleem Sumrah were the production managers, while Akbar Balouch, Muhammad Bhatti and Amir Rehman khan were under the set department. Along with the director, Mehreen Suhail and Syed Sajad Habib were the executive directors.

Casting

Mikaal Zulfiqar plays the male lead

Producer Momina Duraid, and director Ahson Talish mutually chose the cast which includes Mikaal Zulfiqar,^[7][8][9] Ushna Shah,^{[10][11][12][5]} Sana Nawaz ^[13][9][14] Kubra Khan,^[9][4][5] Shehzad Sheikh and Imran Ashraf to portray the leading roles.^{[4][5][15][9][16][11]} Mikaal Zulfiqar and Kubra Khan marked their second appearance together after success in Duraid's Sang-e-Mar Mar.^[17] From 2015, actor Mikaal Zulfiqar was given several shows for the channel including Diyar-e-Dil, Maan, Sangat and Sang-e-Mar Mar all of which were a commercial success for the channel itself, after channels success in 2016's Sang-e-Mar Mar, Zulfiqar once again was finalised to portray the role of Shahzeb.^[8][9][18] Alongside Zulfiqar Kubra Khan was finalised to portray the role of Nazneen ^[7][8][19] after her success in her debut for Sange Mar Mar. The actress completed her series Muqabil and Andaz-e-Sitam for Ary Digital and Urdu1 and joined Alif Allah aur Insaan in 2017. Actor Shehzad Sheikh was finalised to portray the role of Basit ^[13] right after the finale of his 2016 series Choti Si Zindagi.

Actress Ushna Shah was approached by the production head Mahesh Waswani from MD productions and Raza Moosavee, the head of casting department for Hum TV.^[20] The actress was offered to portray the role of Rani which later earned her critical acclaim and success,^{[9][10][11][12][5]} Shah was interviewed by HIP and answered why she accepted the offer of Raani's role, she says "When I read the script I knew I had to do it. Rani was just the one I had been looking for. The depth, the change, the crudeness, the rawness and the reality is something the artist inside me had been craving since I joined the industry. Rani reminded me of why I became an actor" ^[20] Speaking about her role Shah said "Rani evolves a lot as she is an amalgamation of things: The walk was inspired by a lady who used to work in our house when I was a child; ironically her name was also Rani. The dialect was watching the working class growing up in Lahore. A lot of the mannerisms were things I observed in young girls begging on the street. So yes there was some character research involved at my end but everything else was thanks to the genius, Ahson Talish. He crafted the crassness of Rani beautifully, he created her." ^[20] Alongside Shah, Lollywood film actress Sana Nawaz was approached by Mahesh Waswani for the role of Nigar Begum.^{[13][9][14][9]} The series was her second Hum TV project where she portrayed a challenging role, speaking about her character Nawaz says "I play a character called Nigar, I really liked this role because it was very challenging and quite different from what I have done up till now ... It was an honour for me to work with Ahsan, as an actor it was a dream come true to work along a man who is so talented and understands his actors so well and gets the best performance out of them".^[14]

Apart from primary casting, production team also finalised several veteran actors for secondary casts. Director Saife Hassan who regularly directs several series for Hum TV. was finalised to portray the role of Raani's father, the actor had brief appearances in the introduction since he was busy directing Sammi for Hum TV, similarly Actor Noor-ul-Hassan and Actress Kinza Malik were shooting for Sammi but in November 2016 there roles were finished and they were finalised for Alif Allah aur Insaan. Similarly. Veteran actor Usman Peerzada was selected to portray the role of Malik Ashar Khan alongside Ainy Zaidi who portrayed Nazneen's mother. Actress Azra Mansoor previously slelected in Diyar-e-Dil and Bin Roye was finalised to portray the role of Zaitoon, Shahzeb's mother. Actor Qavi Khan was finalised to portray the role of a noble priest who has brief appearances within the play. Farhan Ally Agha was chosen to play Nawazish Ali.

In June 2017, Actor Omer Shehzad and actress Nimra Khan joined the leading cast of the series.^[21][22] Speaking about his role, Shehzad says "Also, my part is very strong, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed ... I’m also coming with a whole new look, I have a moustache, I’m wearing a bracelet in my hand and am always in shalwar kameez, so it’s kind of a wadera look and that’s something I’ve never done before ... I’m also very confident about it because my director told me that this particular character was in line with my presence." ^[22]

Filming, shooting and location

Principal photography commenced on 18 January 2017 and was concluded on 17 November 17, the eleven month shooting period marked Alif Allah Aur Insaan as the longest running serial of 20:00 (GMT) slot on Hum TV. During its filming it had more than average episodes under production and to run it within the 2017 season the production heads decided to release it in April 2017 despite its ongoing shoot. The shooting was finished on 17 November 2017.

Before the shoot, the title of Alif Allah was used, but during the shoot it was changed to Alif Allah aur Insaan. Shooting was extensively done in remote areas of Hyderabad, Sindh and in Punjab areas.^[9] All the location units were overseen by Waqar Baloch who was leading the set department which includes Akbar Balouch, Muhammad Jathi Khan and Muhammad Rehman Khan.

Set-location of Nigar Begum's Haveli was a traditional Haveli which was used by the production house for the filming of their 2016 series Mann Mayal for the same channel.^[23] Shooting locations were overseen by art director Mirza Zeeshan Baig with cinematographer Zeb Rao and editor Mehmood Ali who return as director of photography and chief editing respectively. All three of them previously worked with Duraid's Diyar-e-Dil, Mann Mayal, Sanam and Dil Banjaara that earned their skills critical praise and acclaim. Graphics were done by Hasnain Diswali and Syed Furqaan Ali Qazi of Hum TV. Several sets-locations were real including Nazneen's Haveli and Basit's house, since the series was also filmed in Punjab village its few filming locations were real. Actors Mikaal Zulfiqar, Shehzad Sheikh, Kubra Khan, Qavi Khan, Noor-ul-Hassan, Azra Mansoor, Kinza Malik, Usman Peerzada and Ainy Zaidi have mostly filmed in the Punjab region.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Ahson Talish and Ali Raza; all music composed by Naveed Nashad and Mad Music.

Broadcast

Alif Allah Aur Insaanl premiered on 25 April 2017 .^[27] Alif Allah Aur Insaanl airs a weekly episode on every Tuesday succeeding Choti Si Zindagi, starting from its premiere date, with time slot of 8:00 pm.^[28] It was aired on Hum Europe in UK,^[29] on Hum TV USA in USA^[29] and Hum TV Mena on UAE,^[29] with same timings and premiered date. All International broadcasting aired the series in accordance with their standard times. It was broadcast by Hum Network's new channel Hum World HD for US and Canada.

Home media

In late January 2017, Hum Network protected all its episodes from YouTube and the series had no episodes available in the Pakistani region. All episodes of Alif Allah Aur Insaan were available on Hum's official site. But by June 2017, the channel opened there episodes on YouTube once again and as a result all the episodes were available in Pakistan. iflix contracted Hum Network and screened all of Hum TV's Shows after syndication, the series remained the part of the same contract.

Ratings

After Alif Allah Aur Insaan’s premier, Hum TV claimed on their Facebook page that they had received highest rating with Alif Allah Aur Insaan gaining 5.5 TV Rating Points (TRP) leading the 8:00 pm PST / 20:00 GMT time slot just within the pilot episode. On 4 May 2017, Hum TV provided another rating information given by Media Logic and Kantar Media according to which Alif Allah Aur Insaan once again dominated the Tuesday Timslot with 5.4 TRP on its second episode, the next week, series received 5 Ratings. On 16 May 2017, there was competition amongst the TV Channels where ‘’Alif Allah Aur Insaan’’ once again dominated the time slot with 4.5 TRP on its fourth episode, despite facing a 0.5 rating decrease (to last week) the channel still managed to receive the first rank. According to the same source there was a competition with the channel ARY Digital which came in second delivering 2.0 TRP.

On its fifth episode the series once again averaged higher ratings of 5.0 TRP but there was a competition seen where ARY increased to 4.0 TRP. On its sixth episode it increased a TRP reach to 5.1. In June 2017 there was no rating information provided by the channel since it had transmissions for the month of Ramadan. During the entire month, ARY Digital dominated the top rank with its game show Jeeto Pakistan, followed by Bol News as second rank, Alif Allah Aur Insaan dominated the third rank. On 7 July, Hum TV announced that they have received 4.5 TRP on average with Alif Allah Aur Insaan's eleventh episode and had also dominated the top rank. With its thirteenth episode the series received its highest ratings of all bringing 7.4 TRPs on average. Where as on its fourteenth episode it led the Tuesday day slot with 5.9 TRPs on Average.

By the end of August 2017, Alif Allah Aur Insaan's' Timeslot ranking fell to the fourth position, the Tuesday time slot was then dominated by Ary Digital for three weeks. The series was termed as a drag by the critics and further fell in terms of viewership. However on September 9, it was announced that the series once dominated the #1 rank with an average TRP of 4.4 on its Twentieth episode, the next week it further increased to a rating of 4.9 on its Twenty-first episode, and 4.8 on its Twenty-Second episode respectively. With its Twenty-third episode, channel saw a boost with Alif Allah Aur Insaan delivering 7.89 ratings with a viewership of 3.3 milion.^[31] On the Twenty-fourth episode Alif Allah Aur Insaan's rating saw another increase of 7.0 TRPs. Despite receiving mixed reviews after Twenty-five episodes, Alif Allah Aur Insaan's managed to receive 6.1 TRPs on its Twenty-sixth episode. On Alif Allah Aur Insaan's Twenty-seventh episode Hum TV received a record breaking rating of 8.6 TRPs leaving behind Ary Digital, Geo TV, Filmazia and all rival channels. On its Twenty-eighth episode Alif Allah Aur Insaan averaged 7.12 TRPs with a viewership of 3.0 Million ^[32]

On November 13, a decline of 3.9 TRPs was seen on Alif Allah Aur Insaan's Thirtieth episode, despite its decline it still managed to lead the Tuesday 8:00 pm PST / 20:00 GMT time-slot with #1 rank. Onwards the same episode the series began receiving positive reviews once again. Two weeks after its decline, Alif Allah Aur Insaan jumped to the #1 rank again and delivered 7.4 TRP with a viewership of 2.5 Million on its Thirty-second episode, ^[33] onwards Thirty-second episode the series saw a boost interms of ratings,

It delivered 2.5 Million viewership with 5.5 TRPs on its Thirthy-third episode to Hum TV ^[34], 4.9 TRPS on its Thirty-seventh episode, 5.0 TRPs on its Thirty-Eighth episode and 6.2 TRPs on its Thirty-ninth episode. ^[35] The fortieth episode saw another boost for Hum tv as Alif Allah Aur Insaan bought 7.0 TRPs. The forty-one episode delivered 7.8 TRPs and forty-second delivered 8.2 TRPs, the last episode averaged 8.8 TRPs peaking a point till 9.5 TRP.

PAK TV ratings

Accolades