Few lives in the modern history of the subcontinent have moved through as many distinct chapters as that of Imran Khan Niazi. The Niazi-Pashtun aristocrat from Lahore who studied at Aitchison College and Oxford, who captained the Pakistan national cricket team to the 1992 World Cup, who founded the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in honour of his late mother, who founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party at the age of 43 and entered the political wilderness for 17 years, and who finally took the oath as 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan on 18 August 2018 before being removed in April 2022 — is the most consequential South Asian sporting figure to become a head of government. Behind every chapter sits a deeply layered Punjabi-Pashtun family: a civil-engineer father, a Pashtun-aristocrat mother whose death from cancer gave the hospital its name, four sisters, three marriages — to Jemima Goldsmith, Reham Khan, and Bushra Bibi — and two British-Pakistani sons.

The Family's Roots: The Niazi Pashtuns of Mianwali

The Khan family belongs to the Niazi Pashtun community whose ancestral home is Mianwali, a district in northwestern Punjab adjacent to the Pashtun-majority Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Niazis are a politically and militarily prominent Pashtun tribal community whose members have served in the Mughal armies, the British Indian Army, and the Pakistan civil service for many generations.

Imran himself was born on 5 October 1952 in Lahore, where his family had settled — though they maintained their Mianwali tribal identity.

His Father: Ikramullah Khan Niazi — The Civil Engineer

Ikramullah Khan Niazi was a civil engineer and member of the Pakistan Civil Service. He was, by family accounts, a quietly principled professional. He died in 2008 after a long illness.

His Mother: Shaukat Khanum — The Pashtun Aristocrat

Shaukat Khanum Burki, of the Pashtun Burki tribe, was from a distinguished family that produced several first-class cricketers — including Imran's famous cricketing cousins Majid Khan, Javed Burki, and Bilal Sheikh. Shaukat was a homemaker who raised five children.

She died of cancer in 1985 at a Lahore hospital that, in Imran's telling, lacked even basic facilities for cancer patients. That experience led him to found the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Lahore in 1994 — the first major cancer hospital in Pakistan offering free treatment to those unable to pay. The hospital remains the central public-service legacy of Imran's life.

His Sisters

Imran is the only son of five siblings. His four sisters are all educated professionals; his eldest sister Rubina Khan is a doctor.

His First Wife: Jemima Goldsmith — The British Heiress

Jemima Goldsmith, born 30 January 1974 in London, is a British journalist, screenwriter, and humanitarian — the daughter of the late British financier Sir James Goldsmith and Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. She was 21 when she married Imran in May 1995 at a small ceremony in Paris, and converted to Islam. They lived in Lahore through the late 1990s.

The marriage produced two sons and ended in June 2004. Jemima has remained on famously cordial terms with Imran in the decades since, and was a vocal advocate during his imprisonment.

His Second Wife: Reham Khan — The British-Pakistani Journalist

Reham Khan, born 3 April 1973 in Tobruk, Libya, is a British-Pakistani journalist and BBC weather presenter. She and Imran married in January 2015 but divorced in October 2015 after just ten months — making it the shortest of his three marriages and an event of substantial Pakistani celebrity press coverage.

His Third Wife: Bushra Bibi — The Spiritual Healer

Bushra Bibi, born 1974 in Pakpattan, Punjab, is a Sufi spiritual healer and family friend with whom Imran first connected through her late-1990s spiritual guidance and Sufi household. They married in February 2018, six months before he became Prime Minister. Bushra is known publicly as Bushra Khan since the marriage, and is widely reported to have been one of his closest political advisors.

Their Two Sons: Sulaiman Isa and Kasim

Imran and Jemima have two sons, both of whom were raised primarily in London after the divorce:

  • Sulaiman Isa Khan, born 18 November 1996, the elder son. He was educated at Bradfield College and the University of Bristol.
  • Kasim Khan, born 10 April 1999, the younger son. He has built a private life in the UK.

Both sons hold British and Pakistani citizenship and have stayed deliberately out of political life.

The Khan Family Tree at a Glance

Family Origins

  • Niazi Pashtun community of Mianwali, northwestern Punjab
  • Family home: Lahore (modern); Mianwali (ancestral)

Parents

  • Father: Ikramullah Khan Niazi (died 2008) — civil engineer in Pakistan civil service
  • Mother: Shaukat Khanum Burki (died 1985) — homemaker, of the Pashtun Burki tribe

Siblings (Imran is the only son of 5)

  • Rubina Khan (eldest sister) — doctor
  • Three other sisters

Notable cricketing cousins (Burki side)

  • Majid Khan — Test cricketer, former Pakistan captain
  • Javed Burki — Test cricketer, former Pakistan captain
  • Bilal Sheikh — first-class cricketer

Imran Khan

  • Born Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, 5 October 1952, Lahore
  • Aitchison College, Lahore; Royal Grammar School Worcester; Keble College, Oxford (PPE, 1975)
  • Pakistan Test cricketer (1971–1992); 88 Tests; 175 ODIs
  • Captain, Pakistan cricket team; 1992 Cricket World Cup winner
  • Founder, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre (1994)
  • Founder, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) (25 April 1996)
  • 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan (18 August 2018 – 10 April 2022)
  • Convicted and imprisoned 2023 in multiple cases; remains incarcerated at Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail as of 2025

First Wife: Jemima Khan née Goldsmith

  • Born 30 January 1974, London
  • Daughter of Sir James Goldsmith and Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart
  • Married Imran May 1995; divorced June 2004

Second Wife: Reham Khan

  • Born 3 April 1973, Tobruk, Libya
  • British-Pakistani journalist
  • Married Imran January 2015; divorced October 2015

Third Wife: Bushra Bibi (Bushra Khan)

  • Born 1974, Pakpattan
  • Sufi spiritual healer
  • Married Imran February 2018

Children (with Jemima)

  • Sulaiman Isa Khan (b. 18 November 1996)
  • Kasim Khan (b. 10 April 1999)

The 1992 World Cup, the Hospital, and the Prime Ministership

Imran's career has carried him through three sequential chapters, each of which would have made a complete life on its own. As a cricketer, he led Pakistan to its only Cricket World Cup title in March 1992, defeating England in the Melbourne final. As a philanthropist, he raised the funds to build the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in Lahore — opened in 1994 and now one of the largest free-care cancer hospitals in South Asia. As a politician, he founded PTI in 1996 and spent 17 years building it from a fringe protest movement into the largest party in Pakistan, finally taking the prime ministership in August 2018 after a national election victory.

He was removed from office in April 2022 through a parliamentary no-confidence vote. He was imprisoned in August 2023 following multiple corruption and Official Secrets Act convictions, and remains in Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi, where he continues to lead PTI through directives passed on by his lawyers.

What the Khan Family Story Teaches Us

The Imran Khan story is one of the most layered family stories any modern subcontinental life has produced. A Niazi-Pashtun civil-engineer father. A Burki-Pashtun mother whose death from cancer became the country's largest cancer hospital. Four sisters. A first wife from London who converted to Islam at 21. A second wife who was a BBC weather presenter. A third wife who is a Sufi spiritual healer. Two British-Pakistani sons. A 1992 World Cup. A cancer hospital. A political party. Three chapters of a single life that each could have stood on their own.

For every family — large or small, famous or otherwise — the Khan story carries the same lesson. The losses in a family change the family. Shaukat Khanum's death in 1985 changed everything. Without that loss, there would be no Shaukat Khanum Hospital, no political career built on the hospital's profile, no prime ministership. Write down the losses. They are, often, the most important entries on the tree.

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