Malala Yousafzai ties the knot with Asser in Britain

Gulf Today Report

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, announced on Tuesday that she has tied the knot with Asser in an intimate nikkah ceremony in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Malala shared the good news on his official Twitter account.

“Today marks a precious day in my life. Asser and I tied the knot to be partners for life. We celebrated a small nikkah ceremony at home in Birmingham with our families. Please send us your prayers. We are excited to walk together for the journey ahead,” she tweeted.

PPP leader Aseefa Bhutto Zardari congratulated Malala on Twitter.

Malala and Asser pose for wedding photograph.

Aseefa wrote, “Congratulations! May you both find every joy together, and may your journey be blessed at every turn. Sending you love & duas…”

Jemima Goldsmith wrote on Twitter, “Congratulations and mashallah x”

Malala who was shot by the Pakistani Taliban as a schoolgirl, has urged Afghanistan's new rulers to let girls return to school.

It has been one month since the Taliban, which seized power in August, excluded girls from returning to secondary school while ordering boys back to class.

The Taliban have claimed they will allow girls to return once they have ensured security and stricter segregation under their interpretation of Islamic law — but many are sceptical.

Malala and Asser pose for a photograph at a garden.

"To the Taliban authorities...reverse the de facto ban on girls' education and re-open girls' secondary schools immediately," Yousafzai and a number of Afghan women's rights activists said in an open letter published on Sunday.

Yousafzai called on the leaders of Muslim nations to make it clear to the Taliban that "religion does not justify preventing girls from going to school."

"Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that forbids girls' education," said the writers, who included the head of the Afghan human rights commission under the last US-backed government Shaharzad Akbar.

The authors called on G20 world leaders to provide urgent funding for an education plan for Afghan children.

Asser signs the nikkah papers.

A petition alongside the letter had on Monday received more than 640,000 signatures.

Education activist Yousafzai was shot by militants from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, in her home town in the Swat valley while on a school bus in 2012.

Now 24 years old, she advocates for girls' education, with her non-profit Malala Fund having invested $2 million in Afghanistan.