'It Was a Khula': Sania Mirza's Father Reacts After Shoaib Malik Marries Sana Javed

Former Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik announced on Saturday that he had married actress Sana Javed with a post on his social media handle. Malik was earlier married to Indian tennis icon Sania Mirza, and the couple have a son together.

After Malik’s public declaration of his second wedding to the Pakistani thespian in Karachi, Mirza’s father, Imran Mirza, revealed that his daughter and the 41-year-old former cricketer had divorced through ‘Khula’, before Malik’s second marriage.

A khula is an Islamic jurisprudence through which a woman can initiate a divorce from her husband unilaterally.

Malik wrote, “Alhamdullilah. And We created you in pairs”, on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Malik and Mirza tied the knot back in the year 2010 in the tennis player’s hometown of Hyderabad. However, the celebrated couple seemed to have hit a rocky patch as rumours of separation spread like wildfire since 2022.

The duo haven’t made a public appearance together in a while adding fuel to the rumours and Malik also unfollowed Mirza on the social media image-sharing platform Instagram recently.

Sana, who was earlier married to singer Umair Jaswal back in the year 2020, decided to divorce the singer a couple of months ago according to reports.

Amid all the furore stirred up by the post, Sania had shared a cryptic message on her social media handle that read, “Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard! Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard! Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard! Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard! Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Pick Wisely!”

Mirza has been a stalwart in Indin sports and has been at the forefront of women’s sports in the nation ever since her storied career began nearly 20 years ago as an ambassador for the sport and women in general.