Imran Khan married Bushra Bibi during her iddat period, the cleric who performed the couple’s nikkah ceremony testified before an Islamabad court on Wednesday.
Mufti Mohammad Saeed made the claims while appearing before Senior Civil Judge Nasrum Minallah during the hearing of a petition seeking legal action against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman for marrying his wife before the shariah-mandated time after her divorce had elapsed. Under shariah, iddat is a 130-day waiting period after the dissolution of a woman’s marriage through divorce, death, or any other form of separation from her husband. During this time, the woman cannot remarry.
Khan reportedly married Bushra in February 2018. It was his third, and her second marriage. According to Saeed, PTI leader Zulfikar Bukhari and Khan’s former chief of staff Aon Chaudhry were witnesses to the nikkah, which took place at Bushra’s home in Lahore. In his testimony, he said he had been a part of the PTI’s core committee and had been asked by Khan to perform the nikkah ceremony on Jan. 1, 2018.
According to the cleric, Khan took him to Bushra’s house in Lahore’s Defense area where he met the relatives of both bride and groom. “I obtained, from both sides, sundry details before performing the nikkah. I also asked her about her first marriage and divorce,” he claimed, adding that a woman accompanying Bushra who had introduced herself as her sister had assured him that all requirements for the marriage under shariah were complete.
However, per Saeed, the former prime minister contacted him a month later and requested him to once again perform the nikkah ceremony, as the first one had been against the principles of shariah. “I was told that the nikkah was solemnized during Bushra Bibi’s iddat as she had been divorced in November 2017,” he claimed, adding that he was informed there had been a “prediction” that the PTI chairman could only become prime minister if he married Bushra on the first day of 2018.
According to the cleric, Khan and Busha “deliberately” entered into an “illegal and un-Islamic” union for the sake of a “prediction.” He had also made this claim in a media interview earlier this year.
Rumors of Khan and Bushra’s two nikkah ceremonies had been circulating since 2018, but the PTI had denied this, maintaining that the reports were false.