Did Imran Khan’s spiritual wife, Bushra Bibi, practice ‘black magic’?

An explosive article about former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, has sparked a major row in the country. The report in the British magazine The Economist has claimed that Bushra Bibi had an outsized influence in the Imran Khan government from 2018 to 2022.

The article also alleged that Bushra Bibi used to practice ‘black magic’. Khan and his wife, who were convicted in a graft case, are currently in jail.

Let’s take a closer look.

Bushra Bibi’s ‘influence’ irked Imran Khan’s allies

Bushra Bibi is Imran Khan’s third wife, whom he married in January 2018. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supremo’s marriage to his spiritual adviser had shocked the nation.

Months after the wedding, Khan won the Pakistani elections, partly with the backing of the army.

According to The Economist article, Bushra Bibi irked Khan’s friends and allies, with ministers and household staff complaining about the “eccentric” First Lady having “too much power”.
“Her interference was absolute,” a member of his cabinet told 1843.

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According to Awn Chaudry, Khan’s political aide, and Inam Shah, the PTI chairman’s house manager, the then Pakistan PM sought his wife’s guidance for political and government appointments.

Khan believed Bushra Bibi’s claim that she could “read faces” and would send her photographs of potential candidates. She had a keen interest in interest in Sufism, or Islamic mysticism.

Faisal Vawda, who served as a minister in Khan’s Cabinet, said he was not happy with Bushra seemingly being involved in every discussion.

As per The Economist, Vawda came to know of a meeting between Khan and the then Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in which Bushra Bibi “spoke more than either of them”.

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“There is a long tradition of attributing the failings of powerful men to their scheming wives—think of Lady Macbeth. For those inclined to this way of thinking, Bushra Bibi fits the mould perfectly: a sorceress bewitching the nation’s hero and bending him to her will,” The Economist’s article read.

“But there is another theory about Bushra Bibi’s influence which has less to do with magic. In this version of events, her hold over Khan is the result of Machiavellian string-pulling, orchestrated by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s feared spy agency,” it added.

A story making the rounds in Pakistan is that ISI sent one of its officers to convey intelligence to one of Bushra Bibi’s pirs, who then told it to her. She relayed it to Khan.

“According to the rumours, the officer would, for example, give one of Bushra Bibi’s pirs advance notice about which politician was about to be arrested. Bushra Bibi would then tell Khan that she had received a revelation about the future. When the event she predicted came to pass, Khan would be amazed at his wife’s perspicacity and conclude she did indeed have a direct line to God,” the article claimed.

Did Bushra Bibi practice ‘black magic’?

Bushra Bibi’s “spiritual relationship” with Imran Khan concerned his friends.

Salman Ahmad, a Sufi musician and another old friend of Khan’s, was quoted as saying, “He cannot see beyond that Sufi halo that she carries around with her. That’s a big blind spot for him.”

Khan’s driver has alleged that Bushra Bibi was involved in ‘black magic’. A relative of Bushra’s first husband, Khawar Manika, reportedly approached Jahangir Tareen, a sugar baron and political ally of Khan’s, to warn him about her.

The relative claimed to Tareen that Bushra Bibi was practising black magic. “I told him she was doing all these activities and practices to acquire some holy powers so that she can cast spells on people,” he later told 1843.

After Bushra moved into Khan’s household, she reportedly directed his driver to buy 1.25kg of beef. This was passed around her husband’s head three times while she chanted incantations. The meat was then thrown on the roof for the birds.

The driver claimed he was also told to get heads of black goats on most days and dead black chickens on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

General Bajwa was also reportedly not fond of Khan’s wife. “General Bajwa was always ranting about her, saying she does black magic,” one of Khan’s former cabinet ministers said, as per The Economist. “Bajwa was pissed off because he felt that Khan listened to her more than him.”

There are rumours that even General Asim Munir, who was then the spy agency ISI’s head, tried to warn Khan about his wife. But, instead, the then PM fired him.

Political furore in Pakistan

Khan’s party, PTI, has dismissed The Economist’s report as “fabricated” and “politically motivated”.

According to Dawn, PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqqas Akram asked the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to avoid “agenda-driven” campaign against Khan and his spouse.

He said the campaign through “concocted stories” was nothing but an effort to distract the public from “disastrous policies” that had devastated the country “politically, morally, socially and economically”.

The PTI government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has threatened to take action against The Economist at an international forum.

K-P Information Minister Shafiullah Jan said in a statement that the article was “baseless, factually incorrect, and driven by political propaganda”, according to The Express Tribune.

He accused the magazine of carrying “unverified stories, anonymous allegations, and statements from political opponents.”

Jan dubbed it “domestic gossip” and “hearsay” presented as political analysis, calling the story “a violation of journalistic ethics”. He said the claims about Bushra Bibi’s interference in governance were “completely fabricated”.

The ruling PML-N has endorsed The Economist’s article.

Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari called the reporting “accurate and aligned with the facts”, as per Dawn. She said that the report had laid bare the “deception of the fake spiritual setup and the so-called mysticism that concealed darker intentions”.

“The man who used to threaten his opponents, saying he won’t spare them, himself believed that the manipulated information fed to his wife was some form of spirituality,” she added.

With inputs from agencies