Yaqeen Ka Safar

Yakeen Ka Safar () is a Pakistani television drama series produced by Momina Duraid through MD Productions for Hum TV. It aired from April 19, 2017 to November 1, 2017, with a total of 29 episodes. It was written by Farhat Ishtiaq, based on Ishtiaq's novel "Woh Yakeen Ka Naya Safar" and was directed by Shahzad Kashmiri. 
"Yakeen Ka Safar" chronicles the journey of two protagonists Asfand and Zubiya, who grow after facing hardships and struggle. It was written and produced by the creators of "Humsafar", "Mata-e-Jaan Hai Tu", "Diyar-e-Dil", "Udaari" and "Bin Roye". Its ensemble cast consists of Ahad Raza Mir as Dr. Asfandyar, Sajjal Ali as Dr. Zubia, Shaz Khan as Daniyal and Hira Salman as Gaiti in leading roles. It premiered in Pakistan, the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and UAE with the same date and timings.
"Yakeen Ka Safar" was one of the highest rated programs in Pakistan the year it was released. It has received critical acclaim and won in multiple categories at the Hum Awards including Best Drama Serial - Popular. At the 17th Lux Style Awards, it won also an award and received three nominations.
Plot.
"Yakeen Ka Safar"'s story starts with Zubiya Khalil, a young girl mourning her mother's sudden death at the hands of her physically violent father. Zubiya needed to visit a friend's house to borrow important lecture notes and insisted her mother accompany her, despite her mother being forbidden by her father to leave the house with their driver. When Khalil discovered Zubiya's mother disobeyed this order, he slapped her so hard she fell and ended up hitting the corner of her bed, killing her instantly. Zubiya's aunt Mahjabin arrives and consoles the deeply devastated Zubiya. Khalil threatens Zubiya's whole family in an attempt to silence them regarding the cause of their mother's death.
The second story-line involves a family in Islamabad celebrating their son Daniyal's wedding to his cousin Gaeti. Daniyal is a young lawyer who has recently graduated from London and is an extremely fearless and honest person. Asfandyar is Daniyal's younger brother who will soon leave for Karachi to complete his medical studies after his brother's wedding. He is a lively person and quite ambitious as well. The family maintains a significant reputation in the community as Usman, Daniyal and Asfandyar's father, is a successful lawyer, too. Asfandyar is engaged to his other cousin Faryal, the only daughter of Usman's brother, Rizwan.
The third story-line involves Noori, a naive girl living in a rural village of Sindh. Tragically, Noori is kidnapped by a minister's son, Jahangir Shah, who gang-rapes her along with two of his friends. She is rescued the next day by a man who brings her to a hospital, where the doctor calls her family and informs them of the incident. Eventually, the family decides to remain silent because their poverty means they are unable to afford legal action against a powerful minister. While Noori's father does go to the police station to report Jahangir Shah for raping Noori, he is threatened by the police. After the incident, Noori's family is insulted in the village, so Noori decides to take revenge on Jahangir and his friends. She runs away from her house and is found by and taken to Karachi by Rumana, an NGO lady in Karachi. Rumana informs Daniyal about the Noori gang-rape incident.
Daniyal travels to Karachi, meets Noori, and decides to file a case against Jahangir Shah and his friends. Daniyal starts receiving threats and is even thrown into prison based on the false accusations that he raped his secretary, Urooj Nisaar, who was working for Jahangir Shah. He is bailed out the next day and his family tries to force him to close the case but he doesn't. Some days later, while Daniyal is in his office, he is shot by Jahangir Shah's people, who had also killed one of Daniyal's loyal friends who has been helping him throughout the case. These people also destroy all the proof that Daniyal had collected to present in court and typed up a note, supposedly from Daniyal himself, stating that Daniyal was too scared to deal with this case anymore and that he is leaving everyone forever. This leaves people thinking that he gave up and committed suicide. Everyone receives this news the next morning and the family is left in extreme pain. Noori's state of agony intensifies and she secretly takes a gun from the security guard. She then attends Jahangir Shah's conference and kills everyone.
Meanwhile, Asfandyar and Faryal's engagement ends as Faryal and her parents refuse to believe that Daniyal was innocent and did not commit suicide. After all of this, Asfandyar decides to leave for America to complete his education, while Faryal gets married to someone else and settles abroad. Gaeti gives birth to her and Daniyal's son, Saim. This event finally brings some smiles to the family members faces and they slowly start healing from the past. On the other hand, because of the bad behaviour of her father, Zubiya rebels and starts dating her stalker named Rameez.
Zubiya's sister-in-law Sheema overhears Zubiya talking to Rameez and starts plotting against her so that she can take her revenge from her father in law, Khalil, as he insulted her parents who agreed to get Sheema's sister married according to her liking. Zubiya and Rameez choose to secretly marry so that their family is left with no choice but to accept them and their love. But when Zubiya goes to his house, Rameez reveals his true intentions as he puts a drug in Zubiya's juice so that he can easily abuse her. Zubiya senses that something is wrong and as soon as the abuse begins, she instantly runs out from his flat and is saved by Asfandyar. Her family gets worried as they wait for her to come back. As Sheema knows about their plans, she shows Rehan and Khalil Zubiya's conversation with Rameez, thus succeeding in destroying Khalil's reputation. From here Zubiya was greatly abused by her family and her friends break all ties with her. Here Khalil realises that because of his sins, Allah is punishing his daughter, and wonders how he can be forgiven or help Zubiya regain her respect. 
Despite Rehan and Sheena's arguments, Khalil gets her admitted to a medical college as it was her mother's wish that she becomes a doctor. As soon as she was about to complete her MBBS and her marriage was fixed, Khalil dies. After a few months, Sheena's relative from abroad came to visit her and takes interest in Zubiya. In the middle of the night, he, without Zubiya's consent, enters her room and walks closer to her. Zubiya yells and after Rehan and Sheema find them in the room together, the man falsely accuses Zubiya of calling him to repair her laptop and asking him for sexual favours. Zubiya stands up for herself and tells her brother that when it was my fault, I didn't argue one bit, but now, I will not bear these lies and unjust treatment I am given. Her brother refuses to believe her and she was thrown out of the house. She went to her aunt Mahjabin's home in Peshawar who believes her. She lives there for a few weeks but because she thought aunt's son and daughter in law's lives are being disturbed, she leaves and joins a hostel. She gives a job interview with Asfand's newly established hospital. Where she instantly feels as if she has already seen him somewhere.
From day one, she is scolded a lot by Dr. Asfandyar and that's why she also calls him Hitler and Changez Khan. Asfandyar is now very intelligent but very arrogant. His brother's death resulted in him becoming a bitter person. Zubiya and Gaeti (wife of Daniyal) become very good friends after meeting in a nearby sitting area. Zubiya didn't know that she was the sister in law of Asfandyar. When Zubiya learns that he is also the brother in law of Gaeti she became angry and didn't talk to Gaeti as she blames her for not telling her this and believes that now Asfandyar will think as if Dr. Zubiya is trying to impress his family to gain benefits and profit in her job. After a few days, they make up with each other. Zubiya searched and found that he was the person who saved her from Rameez. Gaeti also tells her all about her family, Asfi and Daniyal. After some time Zubiya realizes that Gaeti and Dr. Haroon (Zubiya's colleague) can get married as Dr. Haroon also lost his dearest wife in an accident just like Gaeti lost Daniyal. On the other hand, Asfandyar's family wants him to get married to Zubiya. As because of her positive nature, Gaeti left behind her trauma of Daniyal's death and started to socialize.
Here as Zubiya is slowly improving her performance as a doctor, she and Asfandyar establish good terms with one another and soon fall in love. In the meantime, Faryal came back and she wishes to marry Asfandyar because her husband divorced her and that she regrets her ill-treatment with Asfi during that difficult phase. But Asfand did not agree to marry her and she went back to her home. Here, Urooj Nisar who was Daniyal ex-secretary and accused him of raping her, comes to the hospital with her injured son who met a car accident as he was drunk. Asfandyar identifies who she is, right in the first sight, so does she. He locks himself in his office and cries remembering his brother. He performs surgery on Urooj's son without taking a single penny from her. In extreme guilt, Urooj calls upon a press conference and confesses all her crimes and ask for forgiveness. Everyone from Zubiya, to Faryal and her parents, everyone saw it on the media and Daniyal's family finally feels proud that their son lost his life in trying to protect humanity. Asfandyar and his father travel and visit Daniyal's grave and attend a seminar which is held to honour Daniyal. After he returned, he proposes to Zubiya but she rejects the proposal saying that temporary infatuation doesn't mean you can get married. She does this because she has lied a lot about her past to everyone and believes that when Asfi will end up remembering the Rameez incident, he will leave Zubiya thinking that she is a characterless woman. Both are heartbroken. Rehan, on the other hand, wakes up in the middle of the night and wishes to ask forgiveness from Zubiya. So he comes to the hospital to meet her. Zubiya notices him and gets very tensed and thought that now everyone will find out that she lied about not having a brother, and her family. She becomes hopeless and flees from the hospital. Asfand locates her and finds her standing high up on the cliff, below which is a lake. Asfandyar is shocked and runs to save her but she had jumped into the lake, and thus committing suicide. Asfandyar without a second thought risks his life to save hers, he rescues her before she could drown completely. Asfandyar then brought her to the hospital while she remained unconscious. Here he finds about her reprimands Zubiya's brother for ill treating Zubiya and confesses his love and adoration for her. After Zubiya gains consciousness Asfandyar tells her that he doesn't care about anything but only her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. They tearfully hug. Rehan is also forgiven by Zubiya. Dr. Haroon and Gaeti are married too. In a voiceover by Zubiya, she mentions that in a few days it would be a whole year since she and Asfandyar have been happily married, and that all the hardships and challenges Allah had in store for you, he also rewards you with blessings in return. In the end, everything was worth it and happened for a reason. The show ends with the moss green SUV of Asfand vanishing from the sight as he and his Zubiya are out on their journey with "Ek Naya Aghaaz" flashing on screen before the curtain falls.
Production.
Development.
"Yakeen Ka Safar" was developed by Hum TV's senior producer Momina Duraid of MD Productions, the channel hired the director Shahzad Kashmiri who previously directed Bin Roye for the same channel. Along with Kashmiri, Mirza Zeeshan Baig was finalised as the art director, it was Baig's return to Hum Television after he directed "Diyar-e-Dil", "Mann Mayal", "Sanam", "Dil Banjaara" and "Alif Allah Aur Insaan" for the same channel. Tameen Nazami and Safdar Hussain Rind were the cinematographers. The story of the serial is based on award-winning writer Farhat Ishtiaq's novel "Woh Yakeen Ka Ek Naya Safar". The screenplay was also written by Ishtiaq while script composing was done by Muhammad Wasi-ul-Din who has previously worked with her with the channel's series Diyar-e-Dil and Bin Roye. Farhat has previously worked in Momina, where she wrote mega-hit drama serials in Pakistan television history Humsafar, Mata-e-Jaan Hai Tu, Diyar-e-Dil. Bin Roye and Udaari. Song composition is done by Waqar Ali and Suhail Haider while the background score is given by MAD Music, Hadiqa Kiani and Richa Sharma finalised to perform the OST. "Yaqeen Ka Safar" is the second collaboration of writer and director after 2015's hit film "Bin Roye". show approximately airs weekly episode for 35–40 minutes (minus commercials) every Wednesday.
There were several discussions laid on its time slot, previously it was announced that the show will premier on April 12, 2017, airing an episode on Friday's replacing "Dil Banjaara". However, since "Dil-e-Jaanam" bought lower ratings to channel's Wednesday slot, "Yakeen Ka Safar" was shifted to Wednesdays and was delayed till April 15, 2017, due to promotional reasons.
Casting.
Sajal Aly, Ahad Raza Mir, Shaaz Khan and Hira Salman were selected to portray the leading roles of Zubiya, Asfandyar, Daniyal and Gaeti. 
Sajal Ali made her television comeback two years after her 2015 Hum TV series Gul-e-Rana. After completing her Bollywood debut MOM, the actress returned to portray the role of Dr. Zubiya and also signed O Rangreza for the same channel. Ahad Raza Mir who made his television debut in "Sammi" was finalised after his success as portraying the role of Salar in "Sammi". The actor received critical acclaim and appraisal for his role as Dr. Asfandyar. 
Film actor Shaz Khan was finalised to portray the role of Daniyal in his filming session in channels upcoming film Parwaaz Hay Junoon. Hira Salman returned to Hum TV after her 2015 TV serial Preet Na Kariyo Koi for portraying the role of Geeti, Salman joined filming after completing her ARY project Sun Yaara, alongside Salman her husband Salman Saqib was also cast where he portrayed the role of Dr. Haroon. 
The production house also chose actors Farhan Ali Agha, Mohammed Ehteshamuddin, and Maryam Nafees to play the roles of Usman, Noori, Khalil and Khajista.
Release.
Broadcast.
"Yakeen Ka Safar" premiered on 19 April 2017 and aired weekly, with a new episode being broadcast every Wednesday at 8:00pm. 
The show aired on Hum Europe in the UK, Hum TV USA in USA and Hum TV Mena in UAE, with the same times and premiere date. It was broadcast by Hum Network's new channel "Hum World HD" for US and Canada.
It rebroadcast on Hum TV in Pakistan premiering 8 October 2018 at 10pm slot. In 2019, It also aired on national channel PTV Home started in August 2019 airing two episodes (Friday and Saturday) a week.
Home media and digital release.
"Yakeen Ka Safar" was also released on Hum TV's YouTube channel alongside its airing but later the channel deleted all its episodes. It was also released on the iflix as a part of the channel's contract, later on terminated the contract in 2019, all episodes were pulled off and thus could not be streamed digitally anymore. 
Later "Yakeen Ka Safar" was also released on OTT the platform MX Player. In July 2019, the channel re-uploaded all episodes on YouTube. A few episodes are also available on Amazone Prime Video.
Music.
The title song of "Yakeen Ka Safar" was composed by Waqar Ali, while Naseer Tarbani penned the series. 
The background score for the series is done by Mad Music. The OST was performed by Hadiqa Kiani. It marks the return of the singer to Hum TV since performing the OST for the channel's hit drama series "Udaari" in 2016. 
The OST "Mitti kay Parindey' was composed by Syed Suhail Haider and its lyrics were written by Kashif Anwar. The OST was performed by Richa Sharma.