On Nov. 9, Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced her marriage to Asser Malik, a manager for the Pakistan cricket board. While the wedding was intimate and mainly kept from the public eye, the husband and wife did post a few photos that captured the celebration on Tuesday.
In his recent post to Twitter, Asser Malik and Malala are shown cutting their wedding cake in celebratory tradition. Asser Malik captioned the post, “In Malala, I found the most supportive friend, a beautiful and kind partner—I’m so excited to spend the rest of our life together.”
Malala also posted an image of her and her husband locking hands while standing under the season’s orange and red foliage on Instagram. She wears a beautiful, traditional light pink ensemble and is happy while smiling for pictures. She captioned the post, “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.”
The wedding ceremony falls a little over nine years after the shooting in Pakistan that would change Malala’s life forever. In Oct. 2012, she was heading home from school in Afghanistan when her bus was stopped by masked gunmen. Three shots were fired, injuring Malala and two other school children. At only 15-years-old, Malala was rushed to the hospital, forced to endure the pain of a bullet in her head. Miraculously, she survived. The shooting exemplifies the Taliban’s anger towards Malala’s growing reputation for voicing her hopes of defying the Taliban and further pursuing her education to become a doctor. During the time, the Taliban made known their goal of ending women’s education rights. Malala’s father, who was head of a school that young girls attended, strongly advocated against the Taliban. Malala was introduced to these ideas at an early age.
After recovering from her injuries, Malala Yousafzai continued to voice her concerns and became a well-known advocate for girls’ education rights. About a year after the shooting, Malala published a book titled I Am Malala, a memoir surrounding the accident and her early life growing up in Afghanistan. At the age of 17, her efforts ultimately led her to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Her acceptance of the award labeled Malala the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. Before this award, in 2011, she had also been awarded Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Price for her activism Iby prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
Today, Malala continues to pursue her career in politics and stands as an advocate for women’s educational rights. In January of 2019, she released her second book titled We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories, where she writes about her life experience as a refugee. There is no doubt that Malala will continue to pursue great accomplishments and we wish her the best of luck with her marriage!
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