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Henry Kissinger watches historian Niall Ferguson marry Ayaan Hirsi Ali under a fatwa

Niall Ferguson, the television historian, has married Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the target of Muslim extremists, in an American ceremony attended by Henry Kissinger.

Niall Ferguson, the television historian, has married Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the target of Muslim extremists, in an American ceremony attended by Henry Kissinger.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Niall Ferguson have quietly married Credit: Photo: Wireimage

Never usually one to do anything without great fanfare, Niall Ferguson, the bombastic television historian, has quietly married Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch MP, who lives under a fatwa after writing the screenplay for Submission, a film critical of Islam.

Henry Kissinger, the former American secretary of state, who was the subject of a biography by Ferguson, 47, was among the guests at the wedding in Boston, Massachusetts. He provided Ferguson with access to his White House diaries and letters for what the historian calls a “warts-and-all biography”.

None of the Harvard historian’s three children are understood to have been at the ceremony. He divorced their mother, Sue Douglas, a former newspaper editor, to whom he was married for 17 years, amid much tabloid coverage last year.

Ali, 41, who lives under police protection in America after the assassination in 2004 of Theo van Gogh, the director of Submission, is due to give birth to the couple’s first child in the next few months. The couple met at party in May 2009.

Songs of Muslim praise

Loyal viewers of Songs of Praise may be in for a surprise. The BBC is considering featuring other religions in the Christian programme, which celebrates its 50th anniversary with a special featuring Sir Cliff Richard on Sunday night.

“I think there’s no reason why we couldn’t explore other faiths,” says Tommy Nagra, the programme’s executive producer, who is Sikh. He is careful to add, however: “They would always be done through the Christian prism.”