Islam, faith and the quiet power of Pakistani dramas

Pakistani dramas are finding a growing audience among young Bangladeshis, not only for their storytelling but for the way they weave faith, spirituality, haya and Muslim cultural identity into contemporary life. In stories of love, ambition and personal struggle, religion often appears not as a sermon, but as a quiet presence - one that can make these stories feel unexpectedly familiar.

In the recently popular Pakistani drama Zanjeerain, which has been drawing considerable attention among Bangladeshi viewers, there is something striking about Sarbuland that goes beyond the usual vocabulary of a romantic hero. In a genre where attraction is often communicated through intense eye contact, physical proximity, persistent pursuit or overt declarations of desire, his restraint can feel almost unusual. There is a quality in the way he looks, pauses and carries himself around the woman he is drawn to that suggests a different kind of romantic expression, one in which desire exists, but is not allowed to consume every boundary.

For a Muslim viewer, that restraint can bring to mind the idea of haya.

The word is often translated simply as modesty or shyness, but its meaning within Islamic thought is more layered. It can involve a sense of dignity, self-restraint and awareness of boundaries. The Qur'an explicitly instructs believing men to lower their gaze and guard their chastity, placing responsibility for modest conduct on men as well as women (Qur’an 24:30). The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) also described haya as a branch of faith in Sahih Muslim (Sahih Muslim 35a).

That distinction matters because popular conversations about modesty have often been disproportionately centered on women: what they wear, how they behave, how they speak and how much of themselves they reveal. The instruction to men to lower their gaze is less frequently given the same cultural attention. Yet the Qur'anic verse begins with believing men.

This does not mean Sarbuland should be turned into a religious symbol, nor should Zanjeerain be interpreted as a religious drama. It is, first and foremost, a fictional story of relationships, family conflict, social divisions and love. But the fact that a restrained male character can be read through the language of haya points towards something larger in Pakistani television: faith and Muslim cultural values can sometimes appear within mainstream entertainment without becoming the entire subject of the story.

That presence is not new.

For years, Pakistani dramas have explored the tension between worldly ambition and spiritual purpose, between romantic love and a deeper idea of devotion and between social expectations and an individual's relationship with Allah. Sometimes these themes sit at the centre of a story. At other times, they exist quietly in the background - in a prayer, a conversation, a character's moral hesitation, a woman's relationship with the Qur'an, or simply the way a character understands what is permissible and what is not.

Perhaps one of the clearest examples is Alif, the 2019 drama written by Umera Ahmed and directed by Haseeb Hasan. Its central character, Qalb-e-Momin, played by Hamza Ali Abbasi, is a successful filmmaker whose life is shaped by glamour and achievement but whose deeper journey is about rediscovering his roots, confronting his past and reconnecting with a sense of purpose. The official synopsis describes Momin as someone who becomes distanced from his purpose while pursuing success and glamour, before his grandfather and Momina help him reconnect with who he really is.

What makes Alif significant in this context is that faith is not simply an accessory to the story. It is part of the character's internal conflict. Momin does not begin as a perfectly formed spiritual figure. His journey is precisely about what happens when outward success fails to answer inward questions. The drama therefore treats spirituality not as a set of instructions delivered to the audience, but as a personal struggle.

That approach is important in contemporary storytelling. Young audiences do not necessarily encounter questions of faith only through explicitly religious programmes. They encounter them through stories about love, family, careers, loss, ambition and identity. When a drama allows a character to question what success means, what love means, or what remains when worldly achievements no longer provide fulfilment, it can enter territory that is deeply spiritual without necessarily becoming preachy.

Shehr-e-Zaat, another Umera Ahmed drama, explored a similar movement through a very different character. Falak, played by Mahira Khan, begins as an upper-class art student whose attention is heavily invested in beauty, romance and worldly desires. Her life changes after her marriage breaks down and she is forced to confront the fragility of the things she had placed at the centre of her world. The drama gradually takes her towards prayer, Qur'an recitation and a renewed search for Allah.

The interesting part is not simply that Falak becomes more religious. It is the way the drama connects spiritual change with emotional experience. Her movement towards faith emerges through disappointment, loss and self-examination. Religion becomes a language through which she makes sense of suffering.

Academic research on Pakistani television has also examined this visual culture of piety. A study published in Critical Pakistan Studies analyses Shehr-e-Zaat alongside other Pakistani dramas, examining how Falak's movement towards a more pious life is portrayed through prayer, Qur'an recitation, wudu and changes in dress and everyday practice. The study also documents how these scenes prompted online viewers to debate the religious correctness of what they saw on screen.

That last point is revealing. Once religion appears on screen, viewers do not necessarily remain passive consumers of the story. They begin to debate whether a character is praying correctly, whether a particular form of modesty is appropriate, or whether the portrayal reflects their understanding of Islam. In other words, popular drama can become an unexpected space where questions of religious identity are negotiated.

A more recent example is Dar-e-Nijaat, which brings questions of desire, haya and moral boundaries into a contemporary relationship story. These questions are closely connected to the Islamic concept of zina, which refers to unlawful sexual intercourse outside marriage and is regarded as a major sin. The Qur'an's wording is significant: believers are instructed not simply to avoid zina, but not to ‘approach’ it (Qur'an 17:32), suggesting that Islamic sexual ethics also concern the boundaries and choices that can lead towards the act. Dar-e-Nijaat is interesting in this context because it presents these boundaries within a romantic narrative, showing how ideas of modesty, desire and what is permissible can become part of the drama itself rather than being discussed only through explicitly religious characters or settings.

Ishq-e-Laa offers another dimension of that representation through Shanaya Azlan Ahmed, played by Sajal Aly. Shanaya is not written as a woman whose identity is limited to her faith or domestic life. She is a journalist, committed to her work and willing to confront social injustice. The drama presents her as a woman with professional ambition and strong moral convictions, while faith remains part of her character. Contemporary descriptions of the character emphasize her work as a journalist and human rights activist.

That combination matters.

For a long time, popular representations of religious women have sometimes fallen into narrow categories. A woman may be portrayed as devout but passive, modern but insufficiently religious, ambitious but morally compromised, or independent at the expense of her faith. Characters such as Shanaya complicate those divisions. Her professional identity does not require the erasure of her religious identity. This also opens a space for a more nuanced form of Muslim feminism - one in which women's agency, education, careers and independence do not necessarily have to be positioned against faith.

This is perhaps one of the more interesting things Pakistani dramas can offer Muslim viewers: not necessarily a perfect representation of religious life, but the possibility of seeing faith occupy the same frame as ordinary contemporary aspirations.

A woman can want a career and still pray.

A man can fall in love and still exercise restraint.

A successful person can question whether success is enough.

A character can be fashionable, educated, ambitious or professionally accomplished without the story automatically presenting those qualities as opposites of Muslim identity.

That does not mean Pakistani dramas consistently achieve this balance. They do not. They are commercial entertainment, shaped by ratings, audience expectations, star power and dramatic conventions. Their representations of religion can be idealized, simplified or even contested. A drama is not a source of Islamic jurisprudence and a character's behaviour cannot automatically be treated as a model of religious practice.

But that is precisely why the phenomenon is worth examining as popular culture rather than religious instruction.

The same can be seen in Alif Allah Aur Insaan, a drama written by Qaisra Hayat and directed by Ahson Talish. The story brings together people from very different backgrounds and places questions of faith, conviction, patience and human relationships at the centre of their lives. HUM TV's own description frames it around five people from different backgrounds and their faith and convictions.

Khuda Aur Mohabbat approaches the relationship between love and spirituality more directly. Its first season follows Hammad, a young man from an affluent family, whose love for Imaan leads him away from his comfortable life and towards a deeper understanding of spirituality and religion. The series has been described as a spiritual-romantic drama and its storyline explicitly connects Hammad's romantic pursuit with his spiritual transformation.

Taken together, these dramas reveal a recurring pattern. Pakistani television has repeatedly found ways to place religious vocabulary inside stories that audiences already care about. Faith can enter through romance. Spirituality can emerge from heartbreak. Prayer can become part of a character's recovery. A moral decision can reveal more about a person's beliefs than a long religious speech.

And perhaps that is where the appeal becomes particularly relevant for audiences in Bangladesh.

Young Bangladeshis today live within an extraordinarily crowded media environment. Indian television and cinema, Korean dramas, Turkish series, Western films and streaming platforms all contribute to the cultural references available to them. Pakistani dramas occupy only one part of this landscape. This is also a striking shift from a few years ago, when many Bangladeshi young viewers were heavily absorbed in Indian Hindi serials, whose influence extended well beyond entertainment into fashion, language and everyday cultural habits. The growing appeal of Pakistani dramas suggests that this media landscape is not fixed.

The more interesting distinction is cultural familiarity.

Pakistani dramas often operate within a social world that can feel recognisable to Bangladeshi Muslim audiences: family structures, marriage expectations, religious vocabulary, Eid, prayer, ideas around modesty, parental authority, social reputation and the tension between individual choice and collective expectations. None of these experiences are uniquely Pakistani or Bangladeshi. But seeing them represented through contemporary characters can create a particular sense of recognition.

That recognition is different from simply seeing one's own country on screen.

It is the recognition of a shared cultural grammar.

This connection becomes especially visible during Ramadan, when Pakistani dramas attract a distinct global following. They are not always religious—in fact, some are simply light, funny and stress-free, but their familiar Muslim social settings and family dynamics seem to fit the Ramadan viewing mood in a way Bangladeshi entertainment has not always managed to.

A viewer may not agree with every character, every religious interpretation or every moral decision. But there can still be a sense that the story understands a particular tension: how to live as a modern young person while carrying a Muslim identity that is not necessarily confined to the mosque or the home.

This may be especially significant at a time when Muslim identity is often presented in popular culture through extremes. It can appear either as something rigid and traditional or as something that disappears entirely once a character enters a modern urban life. Pakistani dramas sometimes occupy the space between those two representations.

The romance in Zanjeerain, for instance, does not need to become a religious lesson simply because viewers notice restraint in Sarbuland 's character. What matters is that such restraint can be understood as attractive rather than outdated. The character does not need to constantly explain his values for viewers to notice them.

There is something culturally significant about that.

In much contemporary entertainment, romance is frequently built around immediacy: the pursuit, the confession, the physical closeness, the intensity. A quieter form of attraction can therefore stand out. When a viewer interprets that quietness through haya, the drama has unintentionally entered a much older conversation about desire, dignity and self-control.

The Qur'anic instruction to believing men to lower their gaze offers an important counterpoint to the way modesty is often discussed in everyday society. It reminds us that modesty is not exclusively a woman's responsibility. And the Prophet's description of haya as a branch of faith gives the concept a significance beyond clothing or appearance.

That does not mean every quiet look in a television drama represents haya. Nor should viewers impose religious meaning on every fictional gesture. But the possibility of reading a character through that lens tells us something about the cultural context in which the drama is being watched.

Perhaps this is the quiet power of Pakistani dramas.

It is not that they are making an entire generation more religious. There is no basis for such a sweeping conclusion. Nor is it that young Bangladeshis have suddenly abandoned other forms of entertainment. They have not. Their viewing habits remain diverse and constantly changing.

The more subtle point is that faith can still matter within popular culture.

It can exist alongside romance without making romance itself immoral. It can exist alongside professional ambition without requiring ambition to disappear. It can exist alongside fashion, friendship, family conflict and modern urban life. It can shape a character's choices without turning the character into a religious stereotype.

For Muslim viewers, that can be a form of recognition.

And recognition matters in storytelling.

People do not watch dramas only to escape their own lives. Sometimes they watch to see parts of those lives reflected back at them in another setting, through another family, another city and another set of characters. They look for emotions that feel familiar, dilemmas that resemble their own and values that they may struggle to articulate in everyday life.

Pakistani dramas, at their best, can provide that space.

Their quietest religious moments may therefore be more revealing than their most explicitly spiritual scenes. A character stopping before crossing a boundary. Someone choosing prayer after a difficult day. A woman holding on to her professional ambition without abandoning her faith. A man learning that love does not necessarily mean possession. A person who has achieved everything beginning to ask what any of it means.

None of these moments, on their own, constitutes a religious message.

But together, they create a different kind of cultural landscape - one where Muslim identity is allowed to remain visible within contemporary storytelling.

That may be why the conversation around Pakistani dramas deserves to move beyond ratings, handsome heroes, beautiful locations and viral scenes. Their popularity is also about the worlds they make imaginable.

In those worlds, faith does not always arrive with a sermon.

Sometimes it arrives quietly - in a character's restraint, in a moment of prayer, in a question about purpose, or simply in the assumption that a person can be modern without having to leave every part of their faith behind.

And perhaps that is the quiet power of being seen.

The author is a development professional