Bushra Khan, more commonly known as Bushra Bibi — a title that denotes respect in Urdu — may at a glance seem an odd match for Imran Khan; the former Pakistani prime minister, cricket captain and renowned playboy.
Ms Khan, in her late 40s, hails from Punjab, where her family are landowners. There, she married her first husband, Khawar Farid Maneka, a customs officer and the son of an influential Punjab family.
They remained married for nearly 30 years, but divorced in 2018. Speaking to local media following their divorce, her former husband said:
“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 mother of five, who is always seen in public wearing a veil and a burqa that shows only her eyes, has lived a life of spiritual devotion to Fariduddin Masud Ganjshakar, or Baba Farid, a revered Muslim mystic in the Sufi tradition.
Those who admire her call her a spiritual leader; those who oppose her have accused her of sorcery.
While she has denied these allegations, in a rare 2018 interview she told local media that “people would come to see me to get closer to God and the Prophet”.
These are the alleged circumstances under which she met her second husband, Imran Khan.
It is unclear when or how the pair met, but one popular rumour places them meeting at a 13th-Century Sufi shrine, after Mr Khan turned to her for advice.
In the same 2018 interview Ms Khan dismissed the story, but said: “Every moment of [Imran Khan’s] life is now dedicated to God, the Prophet and the love for Baba Farid.”
The two married in 2018, seven months before Mr Khan was elected prime minister, in a secret ceremony.
“I did not catch a glimpse of my wife’s face until after we were married,” Mr Khan told the Daily Mail in 2018.
“I proposed to her without seeing her because she had never met me without her face being covered with a full veil.”
The marriage was Mr Khan’s third, after Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of business tycoon James Goldsmith, and TV journalist Reham Nayyar Khan, both of which ended in divorce.
Bushra Bibi did not accompany her husband on any official overseas trips during his time in office, except for visits to Saudi Arabia, where they were filmed at the holy Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina.
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Accused of marrying too soon
Now, a Pakistan court has sentenced both Imran and Bushra Khan to serve seven years, and pay a fine, after a ruling that their 2018 marriage violated the law.
The Khans signed their marriage contract, called a Nikkah, in January 2018, though there was controversy over whether they had wed before the period was complete.
It was Ms Khan’s ex-husband, Khawar Maneka, to whom she was married for about 30 years, who brought a criminal complaint against the Khans, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The Khans both denied any wrongdoing.
“Can say I’m a witness in the Nikkah and it’s a categorically yet another fake case,” Mr Khan’s media advisor Zulfi Bukhari told Reuters.
Samina Yasmeen, director of the University of WA’s Centre for Muslim States and Societies, said Iddat was intended to be a three-month period during which couples could reconcile.
There was some confusion around the dates of Ms Khan’s divorce and her wedding to Mr Khan, she said.
“What’s also confusing, at least from my point of view, is that her former husband didn’t raise the issue when she got married [again],” she said.
“It was only early last year that he filed a case.”
Professor Yasmeen said the case being prosecuted so soon before the election on February 8 indicated the authorities were attempting to trash Mr Khan’s reputation for honesty.
“So I would say, whatever the merits of the case the timing actually suggests that there’s a political intent behind it. And that intent in my view is undermining Imran Khan’s claimed authentic self as a good Muslim.”
Lawyers and human rights activists have condemned the case, but Professor Yasmeen said the reaction in Pakistan had largely been resignation — even among Mr Khan’s supporters.
With Mr Khan already facing more than 20 years in jail “no one is even reacting to this one”.
The embattled former prime minister is in prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, while his wife has been allowed to serve her sentence at their hilltop mansion in Islamabad.
He already faces a 10-year disqualification from holding public office.
Mr Khan also been sentenced to 10 years for leaking state secrets and 14 years along with this wife for illegally selling state gifts.
His representatives say he will launch appeals in all three cases.
ABC/wires