Intro of Imran Series by Ibn e Safi and Mazhar Kaleem MA

Imran Series is one of the best-selling Urdu spy novels series created by Pakistani writers Ibn-e-Safi and Mazhar Kaleem MA. Ali Imran is the pivotal character, a comical secret agent who controls the Secret Service as X-2 but appears to work as a normal member of the Secret Service. Except a handful of people, no one knows his status being the chief of the Service.

Imran Series by Ibn e Safi and Mazhar Kaleem MA

The first book, Khaufnaak Imarat (The Terrifying Building), was published in October 1955. In early books Imran appears as a solo detective, however, later in ninth book, Dhuaen ki Tehreer (The Scribbling in Smoke), he is portrayed as the chief of Secret Service as X-2.

Humour is the essence of Ibn-e-Safi books. In this series by Mr. Safi had written a total of 120 books.

Overview

Following the footsteps of the first best-selling series, Jasoosi Dunya, this series features Ali Imran – a playful, yet deceiving personality. He is a bright young Oxfordgraduate with MSc and PhD degrees in chemistry. His comical and apparently incompetent persona hides his identity as head of a secret service. This series has been widely acclaimed for its high literary quality and strong character development.

Imran Series explains the workings of a country's Secret service that operates from the capital of the country (supposed by many to be Karachi in Pakistan which was the capital when initial Imran Series novels were written. Although Ibn-e-Safi was careful to never explicitly state this, villains often refer to the country as the "one from South Asia"). The Secret Service is administered by the Secretary of Internal Affairs, Sir Sultan, who offers Imran the position as its head after getting personal help from him in Raat ka Shahzadah (The Prince of Night – #8). Imran works as a normal member of the Secret Service and none of his Secret Service subordinates knows his role of being their chief known as X-2.

Differences between Mazhar Kaleem And Ibne Safi

Some of the differences between Ibn-e-Safi's and Mazhar Kaleem's books are as follows:

• Ibn-e-Safi's writing style can mostly be categorised under mystery fiction (with the exception of a few adventures). Mazhar Kaleem, however, does not rely on mystery but on action-oriented situational twists, with the overall plot of the story revealed in the first few chapters.
• Ibn-e-Safi's Ali Imran, although highly intelligent, is not a super-human; Kaleem portrays him as a "man of all qualities" and "indestructible".
• Although Ibn-e-Safi never explicitly stated the name of Imran's country, he used to mention the real names of other countries and cities. Kaleem uses aliases for all country and city names (except Israel).
• Ibn-e-Safi brought Ali Imran and Colonel Fareedi together just once in his novels (and that too in Jasoosi Dunya special number). Kaleem has done that many times, openly favouring Ali Imran against Faridi. (Kaleem has not written any story with Faridi as the main protagonist.)
• Many main characters created by Ibn-e-Safi are not present in Kaleem's books. Examples include Roshee, Zafar-ul-Mulk, Jameson, Sing Hee, T3B and others. (It is interesting to note that Ibn-e-Safi threatened to take legal action against those writers and publishers who would use the characters of Zafar-ul-Mulk and Jameson in their own publications.) Some of the main characters introduced by Kaleem are Captain Shakeel, Juana, Tiger, Shagal, Madaam Rikha, Sualeha, Fisal Jaan, Col. Hillgard, and Inspector Arif.
• In Ibn-e-Safi's Imran series Sulaiman is later married to a girl named Gul Rukh, but in Mazhar Kaleem's novels, Sulaiman is still a bachelor.