Pakistan
Imran Khan’s first Nikah with Bushra “invalid”, says Mufti Saeed
The Mufti records his statement before a court seized with the hearing of the case related to the marriage of the PTI Chief and Bushra Bibi.
Islamabad: Imran Khan, the Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, and his wife Bushra Bibi were married during her Iddat, the isolation period a woman enters after her husband dies or divorces her.
Mufti Saeed, who solemnized the couple's Nikah, revealed this information during the proceedings of the case related to the alleged unIslamic Nikah of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with Bushra Riaz Wattoo, also known as Bushra Bibi.
The Nikah of Khan and Bibi was reportedly solemnized by Mufti Saeed in Lahore, with Khan's friend Zulfi Bukhari and former party leader Awn Chaudhry standing as witnesses. On the 12th of April 2023, Mufti Saeed appeared before a local court in Islamabad with his lawyer to record his statement.
According to Saeed, Imran Khan contacted him on the phone in January 2018 and asked him to solemnize his Nikah with Bushra Bibi. At that time, Saeed was a member of Khan's core committee and had good ties with him. A woman accompanying Bibi identified herself as her sister, and Saeed asked if Bibi's Nikah could be solemnized as per Shariah. The woman assured him that all requirements for the marriage under Shariah were complete, and Saeed solemnized the Nikah on January 1, 2018.
However, Khan contacted Saeed again in February 2018 and asked him to solemnize his Nikah with Bibi again, saying that the first time it was against Shariah. Saeed said that the first Nikah was illegal because it was solemnized during Bibi's Iddat period. Khan had claimed that Bibi had been divorced in November 2017 and that he would become the Prime Minister of Pakistan if he married her.
On January 24, 2023, Mufti Saeed made similar claims during a local private TV program. Umar Cheema, a senior correspondent with The News, had first reported Khan's third Nikah, which took place on January 1, 2018.
However, the party had denied the report at that time. Cheema had also reported that Khan married Bibi while she was observing Iddat and that pictures were released on February 18, 2018, to hide this fact.
The sources claimed that Bushra's former in-laws, the divorce took place on November 14, 2017, and the Iddat was completed on February 14, 2018.