Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan did not say Jesus Christ 'never existed'

Khan made the speech in Islamabad on November 20, 2018, to observe the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. 

Some reports, such as this one, falsely attribute a direct quote to Khan. Below is a snapshot of the headline from the report.

Image

Snapshot of headline from misleading article

In the body of the report, it also says: “Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan openly said ‘Jesus Christ never existed in human history’.” 

The report had an embedded tweet from a person critical of Khan's comments that included a short video from his speech. 

In that video clip in the tweet, Khan said the following.

“Other prophets of Allah came (to this world), but in human history there is no mention of them. Very little mention. There is mention of Moses, but in history there is no mention of Jesus Christ. But Prophet, peace be upon him, was the last prophet of Allah, his entire life is part of history”.

Other online reports, including this one, also carried headlines falsely stating Khan said Jesus Christ "never existed".

Khan’s full speech can be viewed on the verified Facebook account of the prime minister's ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

The remarks about Jesus Christ are from 7:00 minutes to 7:29 minutes.

Khan is speaking in Urdu. An English translation of those comments are:

“Other prophets of Allah came (to this world), but in human history there is no mention of them. Very little mention. There is mention of Moses, but in history there is no mention of Jesus Christ. But Prophet, peace be upon him, was the last prophet of Allah, his entire life is part of history”.

Many mainstream media outlets widely reported on Khan's remarks, describing them as controversial and stating his comments about Jesus Christ had gone viral.

However they reported that Khan's controversial comments were that there is "no mention" of Jesus Christ in history. They did not report that Khan said Jesus Christ "never existed".

Here and here are two reports from major media outlets on Khan's comments. 

*This story was updated to remove a reference in the eighth paragraph to an article that originally had a headline stating Khan said Jesus Christ 'never existed'. The reference was removed because the article was later amended to remove the quote.