Karim Family - Creation and Development

Creation and Development

The Muslim Karim family are introduced as the owners of the soap's grocery store, the First til Last, following the departure of the character Naima Jeffery (Shreela Ghosh) in 1987, who runs the business since EastEnders' inception in February 1985.

The family includes father Ashraf Karim (Aftab Sachak), his wife Sufia (Rani Singh) and their two teenage children, eldest daughter Shireen (Nisha Kapur) and son Sohail (Ronnie Jhutti). The head of the family, Ashraf, is scripted as the second cousin of original character Saeed Jeffery (Andrew Johnson), who departs the serial in December 1985. A character named Ashraf Jeffrey appears briefly in July 1987, described as the brother of Saeed who owns the property above Naima and Saeed's shop; he comes to inform the occupants, Sue and Ali Osman (Sandy Ratcliff and Nejdet Salih), that he is selling the property. Ashraf at this time is played by Tony Wreddon, but although he is referred to as Saeed's brother in this instance, when the character returns, played by Sachak, he is described as Saeed's second cousin. Various serial-accompanying, BBC books have since ignored the original description of Ashraf as Saeed's brother when retelling the character's history, assimilating his as a Karim from his first appearance. For instance, in an extract from the 1991 EastEnders Handbook, author Hilary Kingsley writes, "Sue and Ali learn they may be evicted by Saeed's cousin, Ashraf Karim, because the flat is to be sold." Whilst in EastEnders Who's Who, published in 2000, author Kate Lock lists Ashraf Karim's first appearance as July 1987, indicating that both Ashrafs were the same character with their backstory subsequently altered in the serial.

Collectively, the family were introduced by producer Mike Gibbon early in 1988. Scripwriter Colin Brake has written in his book, EastEnders: The First Ten Years, that 1988 was a year of big change, "The year began in the way it intended to go on—with change. During January, Asraf Sufia took over the foodstore".

Ashraf has been described as heavy-handed, serious-minded and stern, while the children have been described as bright, Sohail "sneaky" and Shireen "pretty". Storylines concentrate on racial difficulties and Ashraf's struggles to maintain Muslim ideaologies in his children's lives, while they are identifying with Western culture. A love triange storyline is integrated into the Karims' marriage in 1989, when Ashraf is revealed to be having a long-running affair with a white woman named Stella (Cindy O'Callaghan), causing many family problems. The culmination of this storyline sees the departure of the Karims in June 1990; they were among many to be axed by executive producer Michael Ferguson. It has been reported that the fate of Sufia was originally scripted differently. Prior to Ferguson's introduction, Gibbon had recruited writer David Yallop to devise ways to kill various members of the cast based, he claims, on their portrayer's acting ability. According to Yallop, Gibbon had agreed that Sufia would be gunned-down and killed in a shotgun raid. The plot never came to fruition, as Gibbon was demoted as head producer and then resigned.