Bahrom Abduhalimov

Bahrom Abduhalimov was born in Tashkent on 27 February 1959. In 1981 he graduated in Arabic philology from the oriental faculty of Tashkent State University (today the National University of Uzbekistan). He first worked for two years as an Arabic interpreter at the Soviet embassy in Tripoli, Libya, and in 1983–1985 served in the foreign scientific and technical cooperation department of the Uzbek SSR Ministry of Agriculture.

In 1985 he began his academic career at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies, where he was a junior researcher, researcher and academic secretary, and in his last two years deputy director for science. He defended his candidate dissertation in 1994 and his doctoral dissertation in 2001, becoming a Doctor of Historical Sciences and professor. In 1996 he held a fellowship of the Imam al-Bukhari Centre for Islamic Studies in Oxford, and in 1997 a British Chevening scholarship.

In 2003–2004 he was a pro-rector of Westminster International University in Tashkent. In 2004 he became director of the Abu Rayhan Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan; in 2006–2008 he served as state adviser to President Islam Karimov on religious affairs, then returned to the institute as director and led it until 2014.

From 2011 to 2016 he was vice-president of the Academy of Sciences for the social sciences and humanities, and since 2017 he has again been vice-president of the academy and honorary director of the Institute of Oriental Studies. His research covers the history of Central Asia, Eastern manuscripts and the Arab countries; he has published about a hundred articles, pamphlets and monographs in Uzbek, Russian, English and Arabic, and shared the Imam al-Bukhari Kuwait Prize with his co-authors.

In October 2020 he was elected chairman of the political council of the Adolat Social Democratic Party. In the election of 24 October 2021 he ran for president for the party and came fifth among five candidates. On 20 January 2024 he was relieved of the party leadership at his own request. In August 2020, for the 29th anniversary of independence, he was awarded the Order of Labor Glory (Mehnat shuhrati).