Daily Times

One would believe a country where an overwhelming 97 per cent of the population follows Islam, to be de facto cleansed of any and all superstitions. A Muslim is supposed to have a firm faith in the power of Allah and his given facilities to act upon his intellect with courage and confidence. In Surah Taghabun, Allah asks Muslims to place their trust in Allah and recite,

“O Allah! There is no omen except Your omen, and no good except Your good, and there is none worthy of worship except You.”

When ordinary Muslims are said to believe that superstitions have no place in Islam as nothing more than baseless feelings bordering on outright delusions, those proclaiming themselves to be the much-needed messiah should automatically put their best foot forward. During his time in Islamabad, former prime minister Imran Khan repeatedly wrote to the leaders of the Muslim-majority countries to “act collectively.” Coiling his prayer beads in media interactions and standing as a prominent Muslim voice at various leading international organisations, it did not suit him to hide behind a smokescreen of superstitious calculations. Going by his oft-iterated and very public admission, his wife Bushra Bibi remained his spiritual mentor. Although there is no harm in following the guidance of a teacher, or a preacher, in the manner of faith, recalibrating the compass to resonate with her decisive influence reeks of submissiveness and a decisive influence.

“O Allah! There is no omen except Your omen, and no good except Your good, and there is none worthy of worship except You.”

Mystic supplications should not have been used in matters of key national significance. There is a swirling acknowledgement by the management of Monal Restaurant that the owner was repeatedly asked to place green light and laser beam in a bid to add the “holy” vibe, which when visible from Bani Gala, would give solace to Bibi. The former first lady had a particular penchant for the green colour, possibly due to a correlation with the Islamic monuments.

It may have been one thing to act upon a personal inclination towards a particular colour but to order the freeing/expulsion of wildlife from Daman-e-Koh Zoo just because their presence would not bode well for the Khan administration reeks of unfounded beliefs. Due to reasons not yet known to the public, several of the staff deployed at the PM House admitted to the positioning of slaughtered black roosters and black goats atop the Bani Gala Residence every Friday.

Bushra Bibi was the single most important supporter of the disaster called Usman Buzdar. Based on some mystic calculations, she convinced Khan that his survival in power was linked to Buzdar’s stay as the CM. By allowing this to happen under his watch even when the writing on the wall screamed of his inefficiency, Mr Khan himself provided the final nail in the proverbial coffin of his administration.

Going by the accounts of various stalwarts in the PTI, Bibi acted like a puppetmaster making everyone dance to her tune. In stark contrast to her image in the headlines as a devout, humble lady of little to no interest in anything other than her faith, her arrogant encounter with the police officer in Zaman Park gave a whiff of something sinister at play. Between arm-twisting Mr Khan into a hastily-arranged marriage just because she deemed the timeline to be auspicious, according to titles like Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq to those who did not do her bidding and organising heated media trials of the opposition, there was a lot that went on behind closed doors and from the privacy of chadar and chaar deewari.

The PTI might have escaped a close brush with ruin had these shenanigans been isolated or only interfered with the personal life of their supreme leader. But when the hard-earned, fragile resources of the state were squandered in the name of developing private property at Bani Gala or political decisions of paramount importance were taken without an eye on the implications, Bibi and her cohorts were silently knocking the wind out of Imran Khan and his supporters, one punch at a time.

The writer is Oped Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786@gmail.co. She tweets @dureakram