The Economist’s recent special report on Bushra Bibi, the wife of Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan, has reopened a debate many in the country have tiptoed around for years. The magazine’s findings, stark in detail and unsettling in implication, revive persistent questions about who really wielded influence during Khan’s premiership and how far the boundaries between the political, the spiritual and the absurd were allowed to blur inside the country’s highest office. For a woman who spent most of her time shielded from public view, Bushra Bibi now stands at the center of a narrative that intertwines statecraft with mysticism, governance with superstition, and political loyalty with whispered revelations.
According to The Economist, the earliest sign of the intelligence services’ curiosity emerged shortly after her marriage to Imran Khan — a ceremony shrouded in secrecy and speculation from the moment it was announced. The magazine emphasized that the marriage was not brokered by the agencies, yet there were those inside the security establishment who believed they could quietly benefit from the influence she seemed to hold over Khan. It was a claim long treated as rumor in Islamabad’s drawing rooms but is now presented with structured accounts: intelligence officials allegedly passing information through intermediaries connected to Bushra Bibi’s spiritual circle, enabling her to present those briefings to Khan as if they were revealed through visions.
When her “insights” proved surprisingly accurate, Khan’s trust reportedly grew firmer, leaving some officials unnerved by the expanding reach of her counsel. This sense of unease, The Economist argues, was not limited to political rivals or gossipy insiders. Senior military leaders, including the then army chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, were said to have expressed concern that Khan was turning too frequently to his wife rather than to institutional advice. The report even links Bushra Bibi’s objections to the controversial removal of Lt Gen Asim Munir as ISI chief in 2019, a moment that still casts a long shadow over civil-military relations. If accurate, it implies a striking possibility: that one of the country’s most sensitive leadership decisions may have been influenced not merely by political calculations but by the preferences of a spiritual adviser-turned-first lady.
Layered onto these political tensions were rumors of occult practices. Former household staff and a driver alleged that rituals involving raw meat, rotating objects around Khan’s head, and the burning of chilies took place in the prime minister’s residence. A butcher confirmed to the magazine that unusual orders had been placed. Such details — part sinister, part surreal — deepen an already extraordinary portrait. The claims go further, suggesting that the atmosphere inside the household shifted after Bushra Bibi’s arrival, as if governance and mysticism had become inseparable in the daily life of the country’s most powerful elected official. Anecdotes from senior PTI figures strengthen that impression.
The report recounts an encounter between Jahangir Tareen and Bushra Bibi in which she remarked that she had chosen a white outfit to avoid being mistaken for a woman associated with dark magic. Tareen later concluded that his political future had no room under such an arrangement and quietly withdrew. Within the party, the belief that criticism of Bushra Bibi was career suicide grew rapidly, solidifying into something close to doctrine. Awn Chaudhry’s removal after Khan told him his wife had dreamt he must not attend an oath-taking ceremony is cited as one example of how pronounced this influence had become. Behind the more theatrical claims lies a deeper, more consequential reality: the suggestion that official business — from transfers and postings to major decisions — was filtered through a spiritual lens.
Staff members told the magazine that Khan would send photographs of political figures for spiritual face-reading, and that on at least one occasion a flight was delayed for hours because Bushra Bibi deemed the timing unfavorable. Journalist Owen Bennett-Jones wrote that insiders believed spiritual consultation had eclipsed rational policy-making, contributing to the stalling of Khan’s reform agenda. It is a sobering thought that one of the world’s most volatile democracies, armed with nuclear capability and grappling with chronic economic fragility, may have been partly governed through omens. The report’s co-author, Bushra Taskeen, expanded on these findings, describing the process of gathering testimony as both startling and challenging. She and her colleagues struggled to present the black-magic allegations to editors in a manner that met the publication’s rigorous standards.
Eventually, the accumulation of accounts convinced them there was a story that demanded public scrutiny. Taskeen argued that the marriage had exposed Bushra Bibi’s inexperience in politics and that the collapse of PTI’s fortunes ultimately showed the limits of her influence. Her assertion that routine administrative matters seemed swayed by rituals raises troubling questions not just about individual choices but about the political culture that allowed such a dynamic to flourish. The Economist’s report is careful to acknowledge the denials as well. Following publication, associates of Bushra Bibi rejected every claim as fabricated, malicious or sourced from disgruntled former employees. PTI has long dismissed such allegations as character assassinations carried out by opponents or members of the establishment uneasy with Khan’s anti-corruption rhetoric.
Yet these denials now carry less force than they once did. Both Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi are in jail, tangled in a web of legal cases that reflect the broader collapse of PTI’s relationship with the state. Within the party, a quiet debate has begun about whether Bushra Bibi could still influence Khan’s political decisions from behind bars. Some believe she is one of the few people who might persuade him to pursue reconciliation with the military. Others — including Khan’s sister Aleema and the party’s more combative factions — remain adamant that capitulation is impossible. The Economist’s report does not claim to resolve these tensions. What it does, with disquieting clarity, is expose the thin line between private belief and public power in Pakistan’s recent political history.
