Kemal Tekden, the producer of famous Turkish drama series Dirilis: Ertugrul, visited Pakistan on January 8 to discuss a new historical television series ”Lala Turki”, jointly produced by the coordination of the two countries.

The drama series will be based on the role played by the Muslims of the subcontinent in Turkish war of independence –also known as the Khilafat Movement (a campaign to support the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century).

The series has been titled as ‘Lala Turki’, which means Turkish elder brother in the Pashto language. There will be three seasons of the series, each comprising 30 episodes. The series’ episodes will be aired simultaneously in Pakistan & Turkey from 2023.

Abdur Rahman Peshawari

The main plot of the series may revolve around the life of Abdur Rahman Peshawari, a Kashmiri migrant from Peshawar, who later went to Ottoman Turkey to fight against the imperial forces alongside the Turk army.

For his services to Turkey he was later appointed as an envoy to Afghanistan by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk where he was famously known as “Turki Lala” or “Lala Turk”.

After serving his post for two years, he returned back to Istanbul but unfortunately only to be assassinated in a case of mistaken identity.