Imran Khan’s Pakistan: A Personal History describes his journey from playboy cricketer through believer and charity worker to politician. His story is interwoven with highlights from Pakistan’s history. At times he seems to conflate his own destiny with that of Pakistan, and at others to be writing a beguilingly honest personal account.
Khan describes how youthful hedonism eventually gave way to faith. His cricketing life led him to realise that talent and dedication were no guarantee of success. In the end, he says, it comes down to luck. ‘Over the years I began to ask myself the question — could what we call luck actually be the will of God?’
Khan’s religious awakening was further stimulated by physical vulnerability. In 1982 Khan was at his peak as a fast bowler. Pakistan was becoming a force in international cricket and had ‘thrashed Australia and India comprehensively’. Khan felt invincible, but a stress fracture suddenly meant he was unable to bowl for two and a half years. Most of the doctors he saw said that he would never bowl again. His ‘whole world came crashing down’. After an astrologer and a couple of clairvoyants failed him, he says, ‘in my state of uncertainty and vulnerability, despite all my doubts, I would turn to God’.
Worse still was to come. The author was recovering from the injury when his beloved mother became ill. Shaukat Khannum was told that she had a stomach infection, but it later emerged that she had colonic cancer. Khan was appalled by the standard of medical care for cancer sufferers in Pakistan, and after her death he raised the money to build a cancer hospital in her memory. It was a phenomenal achievement, driven solely by his vision and determination.
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