Imran Khan’s spiritual leader and now ‘illegal’ wife: Who is Bushra Bibi?

Elections in Pakistan are only days away. And trouble continues to mount for Imran Khan. He is in jail and at least 150 cases have been filed against him. He has been accused of corruption, bribery, abetting violence and has been convicted in some cases.

Khan’s partner in crime (literally) is his wife, Bushra Bibi. Last week, they were each handed a 14-year jail sentence in the Toshakhana case related to the illegal selling of state gifts. That’s not all. On Saturday, a local court declared their marriage “unIslamic”, sentencing the couple to seven years.

Bushra is Khan’s third wife and is very different from her rather glamorous predecessors – Britain’s Jemima Goldsmith and journalist Reham Khan. A conservative, she is always covered in a veil and burqa, only showing her eyes.

Khan and Bushra married in 2018 and the former Pakistan prime minister told the Daily Mail in an interview back then that he “did not catch a glimpse of my wife’s face until after we were married”.

They were once Pakistan’s most powerful couple. But now fortunes have changed. We take a look at how Bushra went from a spiritual leader to a convict.

Also read: Pakistan elections 2024: Can Imran Khan, Prisoner No 804, win the elections from jail?

Bushra Bibi’s life before meeting Imran Khan

Born Bushra Riaz Watto, she belongs to a family of landowners. She is said to be in her late 40s (Khan is 71) and not much is known about her early life. Before Khan, she was married to Khawar Farid Maneka, a customs officer from a politically influential Punjab family, for close to 30 years. Bushra and Maneka have five children.

After their divorce in 2018, the former husband was quoted by Pakistani media as saying, “I want to clearly state about my former wife, Bushra Bibi, that I have not seen a woman as pious as her in the world.”

The woman is a faith healer with a small following. She is said to be devoted to Sufism, a mystical form of Islam but the claim is disputed by others.

Bushra and Maneka are devotees of Fariduddin Masud Ganjshakar, or Baba Farid, a revered Muslim mystic and Sufi saint whose shrine is located in Maneka’s hometown of Pakpattan in Punjab.

The wedding 

It is not clear how Khan and Bushra met but rumour has it that one of their first encounters was at a 13th-Century Sufi shrine. She was still married to her first husband then.

She, it is said, saw in her dreams that the only way Khan would become prime minister was if they got married, according to a report in the BBC. In her only television interview in 2018, Bushra rubbished the story.

The two got married in a secret ceremony seven months before he was elected prime minister.

Khan said after their marriage that it was Bushra’s intellect and character that drew him to her. He said that he has been interested in Sufism for more than three decades and has often called his wife his spiritual leader.

The cricketer-turned-politician was dubbed a playboy in his younger days and his earlier marriages made for sensational headlines. At 43, he married 21-year-old British heiress, Jemima Goldsmith, the daughter of one of the world’s richest men at the time. His second marriage in 2015 was to a journalist Reham Khan, which lasted for less than a year. She alleged that she was bullied by Khan’s supporters, reports BBC.

But the former Pakistan PM’s marriage with Bushra was low-key. By then, Khan’s displayed his devotion to Islam and the match helped him strengthen that image.

Bushra took the last name Khan after the marriage. Her husband and her followers refer to her as Bushra Bibi or Bushra Begum, titles that denote respect in Urdu, according to a report in Reuters.

However, Bushra is a divisive figure in Pakistan. Locals who admire her devotion call her a spiritual leader while Khan’s opponents accuse her of practising sorcery, a claim Khan’s aides have repeatedly denied.

She told the local HUM news network in the 2018 interview that “people would come to see me to get closer to God and the Prophet”. She also said, “Every moment of Khan sahib’s life is now dedicated to God, the Prophet and the love for Baba Farid.”

According to her, Pakistan would improve under Khan. But the contrary has happened. During his tenure, the economy collapsed and the cost of living soared.

In 2022, Khan was ousted as prime minister, then arrested and is now in jail.

Also read: Does Pakistan’s Imran Khan have a future in politics after being jailed?

The controversies

Bushra also faces jail. She is serving a 14-year sentence in the Toshakhana case. However, her role in the case is unclear.

Bushra Bibi’s sentence was another attempt to put pressure on the former prime minister, the PTI’s acting chairman and lawyer Gohar Ali Khan said. “Bushra Bibi has no link to this case,” he told a local television network, according to Reuters.

There are other corruption charges against Bushra.

According to members of Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, it was Bushra who inspired Khan to set up the Al-Qadir Trust, a non-governmental welfare organisation that runs a university outside Islamabad devoted to spirituality and Islamic teachings. The Trust is part of the corruption charges levied against the couple.

Khan was arrested for four days in May last year on charges that he and his wife received land as a bribe through the Al-Qadir Trust. Pakistani authorities have accused them of receiving the land, worth up to 7 billion rupees ($25 million), from a property developer charged in Britain with money laundering.

The latest blow came on Saturday. Bushra has been sentenced to seven years with Khan in the case related to their marriage. The verdict was announced on Saturday in the “un-Islamic marriage case”, which was filed by Bushra’s former husband.

The couple is convicted for not waiting for 40 days to remarry after Bushra’s divorce. But after the sentencing, Khan told reporters that the case was created to “humiliate and disgrace” his wife and him.

Last week, a government notice said that she would be held under house arrest at her Islamabad residence until further orders, reports BBC. But this could change soon. And Bushra could spend years in jail.

With inputs from agencies