Ali Baba

Plot

Chapter 1: Dastaan-E-Kabul

Ali Baba is a poor, yet a very good person living with 5 adorable orphan children viz Gulrez, Poya, Imaad, Nafi and Alifi. He always gets flashbacks of when his father, the great magician Mustafa gets killed while destroying the Forty Thieves and their Leader, Iblis. However, he makes a prophecy that Ali will write and complete 'Legend of Kabul'. Simsim who loves and respects Iblis, decides to crack the moon to break the curse to get the Forty Thieves back and succeeds in it. Princess Mariam loses her father due to a fight between her father and her wicked uncle, Saddam; a cunning person who helps Simsim but wants to sit on the Throne. Later, Mariam escapes and after a lot of turns meets Ali.

They slowly develop feelings for each other and Ali, Mariam and the children reach Ali's home. Ali and Simsim come face to face but Ali wins the Talisman and becomes the Saviour of Parvaz. After a series of events, Ali Baba finally takes the treasure but Qasim had watched him. Then Qasim gets brutally killed by the Forty Thieves and Simsim and they hung him in the centre of Parvaz to give warning to the people. They also gave the note that if anyone gets him down then his whole family will die. So, for the sake of his family, Ali Baba can't gets Qasim down. But later Ali, in the form of Rakhwala, with the help of the Talisman provides proper burial to Qasim. Then, Ali Baba promises to finish Simsim and the Forty Thieves.

Ali Baba now tries to find a way to kill the Forty Thieves and Simsim once and for all. Then by solving clues of his father, Ali reaches his father's magical world and after a lot of turns meets his father who gives him the 'Noor' but warns him that the Noor works only with the Talisman. After returning, he discovers that Nazia has sold the Talisman. Ali goes to find the Talisman but gets to know from Nafi that Marjina has been captured. Then he decides to save Marjina's life first. On the quest to save Marjina, Ali fails and burns his face by the Forty Thieves and was left to die.

Simsim gets out of the cave by breaking the curse from sacrificing Marjina and enters Parvaz as Simijaan to catch the Rakhwala. She also captures Ali's grandmother. Very soon, she enters Mustafa's magical world to find her answers and again comes face to face with Mustafa.

Chapter 2: Ek Andaaz Andekha

Simsim asks Mustafa who the Rakhwala is and he answers that his son, Ali is. At the same time, Alifi saves Noora Dadi and burns the entrance to Mustafa's world to finish Simsim but fails. Ali gets the cure. He then returns to Parvaz as Chota Kotwal to find Simsim. Very soon, Ali imprisons Simsim and gets to know the real place of Marjina. Then he finds Marjina but is shocked to see that Marjina has lost her memory. Ali gets to know that the Prince of Ras Al Khaimah is responsible for Marjina losing her memory and after a lot of turns, Ali defeated the Prince and takes Marjina back to Parvaz. The children also fall in danger but ultimately succeeds and returns to Parwaaz.

On the way, Ali and Marjina unknowingly disturb a marriage as a headless woman comes and takes the groom. To help the people and to free the groom, Ali makes a plan to catch the headless woman. On the other hand, the children goes to find the Talisman and ends up in the Snake World. On the other hand, Ali promises to find the head of the headless woman and succeeds. Simsim is freed by the Forty Thieves. Simsim then seeks to take revenge on Ali. Ali goes in search of Marjina's memories. Ali then gives the memory of Marjina to her and she recalls everything but questions about Ali's face but Ali explains her how his face changed. The children also escaped from the Snake World but Saddam brings the news to Simsim about the Talisman and tortures the children.

On returning home happily, Ali and Marjina gets to know from Hasan, (who was stabbed by Simsim and left alive to give the information to Ali), that the children are kidnapped by Simsim in the palace of Kabul Shahi. Ali and Marjina rush to Kabul Shahi to save the children and where Ali realises that Marjina is actually Princess Mariam. Then they successfully saved the children and Mariam finally kills Saddam. Simsim goes to find the Talisman but fails and gets to know that she needs Ali's helps to get the Talisman as she saw the Noor of Shangrila on Ali 's back when she was fighting against him. She asks for Ali's help but he refuses. Then she kills Noora Dadi and threatens Ali that she will kill every one Ali has loved and will destroy the entire Parvaz. So, for the sake of everyone's life, Ali Baba promises to get the Talisman for her.

Then they reach the Shangrila in the north of Hindustan to get the Talisman where Ali gets injured while saving Roshni from an arrow. Then Roshni takes them inside the Shangrila. There, Ali Baba takes the Talisman and Roshni is apparently killed by Simsim, but Ali blames himself for her death. On returning to Parvaz, Ali seemingly gives the Talisman to SImsim. Mariam reveals to Ali that Roshni is his mother. Ali is mortified and swears revenge, revealing he has the real Talisman. Then Ali goes to the cave of Simsim and when he was about to open the door of Simsim's Cave, he was confronted by the guru of Shangrila Tribe and he says that Roshni has not been killed but vanished and kidnapped by Simsim. He then finds the prison which had Roshni and Ali frees her and they both go to Parvaaz. They then were having a feast on the birthday of Ali's father Mustafa. On the same day Simsim and the Forty Thieves comes to Parvaaz to recover the Talisman from Ali.

Cast

Main

Sheezan Khan as Ali Baba:

Mustafa and Roshni's son, Qasim's younger half brother, Iblis's nephew, Hatim foster brother, caretaker of five orphan children, Mariam's love-interest. (2022)

Abhishek Nigam replaced Shezan Khan as Ali Baba. (2023)

Subhan Khan as young Ali Baba (2022)

Tunisha Sharma as Mariam:

Princess of Kabul, Ali's love-interest, Sultan Shah Zuhaid's daughter. She is known as Marjina (fake identity) by Ali, his five orphan children and his friends. (2022)

Manul Chudasama replaced Tunisha Sharma as Shehzaadi Mariam. (2023)

Karthik Jayaram as Iblis:

Leader of 40 thieves, Simsim's love interest Roshni's brother, a dreadful and deadly warrior. (2022-2023)

Aarav Chowdhary replaced Karthik as Iblis (2023)

Sayantani Ghosh as Simsim/Simi Jaan:

Devotee of Iblis. Later blessed with power and cursed to become guardian of the cave. Iblis love interest. (2022–2023)

Recurring

Arisht Jain as Imaad Abdali, An intelligent so-called orphan raised by Ali. He is later revealed to be Ziya Abdali's biological second son and Zoravar's younger half-brother whom he abandoned in Ali's house years ago. (2022)

Sara Paintal as Gulrez, A youngest of all the orphans raised by Ali. (2022)

Ekagra Dwivedi as Poya, A foodie orphan raised by Ali. (2022-2023)

Jared Savaille as Nafi Afghani, A chilled and open-minded so-called orphan raised by Ali. He is later revealed to be the son of Theeyab Afghani who is the Chief of Nakabjani Tribe and is raised by the family of thieves. This truth is only known to Poya who is another orphan kid being raised by Ali. He is the first person to know about Marjina's real identity. (2022-2023)

Ananya Dwivedi as Alifi, A kind and eldest of all the orphans raised by Ali. (2022-2023)

Naved Aslam as Mustafa, Qasim and Ali Baba's father and a great sorcerer who was killed by Iblis. (2022-2023)

Daljeet Soundh as Noora Bibi, Mustafa's mother, Qasim and Ali Baba's paternal grandmother who locked herself in her room for 20 years and came out of the room when the moon broke. (2022-2023)

Vineet Raina as Qasim, Mustafa's son from first wife and Ali's elder half-brother. He was killed by Simsim and the forty thieves. (2022)

Sapna Thakur as Nazia, Qasim's widow, Ali's half-sister-in-law (2022-2023)

Ayush Shrivastava as Khusro/Kishore, Ali's best friend who hails from Hindustan. (2022-2023)

Hunza Sabir as Zarifa, Dariba's sister, Ali's friend (2022-2023)

Production

Casting

Sheezan Khan was cast in the titular role, and was joined by Tunisha Sharma, Karthik Jayaram and Sayantani Ghosh as leads.

Navina Bole was cast to portray Fatima's mother in October 2022.

Abhishek Nigam replaced Sheezan Khan in Season 2 in January 2023 post Sharma's demise while Manul Chudasama replaced Tunisha as Mariam in the following month. In May 2023, Sumedh Mudgalkar and Srishti Jain entered the show as Hatim and Tahira respectively.

Controversy

On 24 December 2022, actress Tunisha Sharma playing the lead role of Shehzaadi Mariam, committed suicide by hanging herself in the green room of co-star Sheezan Khan on set. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead on arrival.

Hours after her death her co-actor, rumored boyfriend and the lead Sheezan Khan was booked in the case of abetment for suicide by her mother.

On 4 January 2023, Federation of Western India Cine Employees, president BN Tiwari demanded strict action against the makers for negligence.

Development

The series was announced by Peninsula Pictures in March 2022 and was confirmed in July 2022 by Sony SAB. The shooting of the series began in June 2022 in Ladakh, India.

Filming

The shooting of the series halted after the lead actress Tunisha Sharma committed suicide on set in Naigaon. The show had an episode bank of one week.

The cast resumed the shooting of the series on 4 January 2023, on Renu Studio in Naigaon. Actor Abhishek Nigam was finalized to replace Sheezan Khan as Ali Baba in a new plot.

Soundtrack

Ali Baba soundtrack is composed by Souvyk Chakraborty. The first song "Rehnuma" is the theme song of Ali and Mariam.