P rominent t ajik f igures of the

Prominent Tajik Figures of the Twentieth Century

35
Ashrafi, Mukaddima

Tajik art historian Mukaddima Mukhtorovna Ashrafi was born on
July 5, 1936, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Her father, Mukhtor Ashrafi, was
a well-known composer and conductor in Uzbekistan and she is the
wife of Tajik intellectual Kamol Aini.
Ashrafi graduated from Moscow State University with an MA in Art
History in 1959 and a Ph.D. in Art History in 1972. From 1959 to 1961,
she served as a research fellow in the Department of Literature of the
Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet
Union. Thereafter, until 1972 she served as a research fellow in the
Department of Manuscripts of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the
Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan. From 1972 to the present, she has
been serving as a senior research fellow and chief researcher at the
Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan. She
completed her post-doctorate work in Art History at the Institute of Art
History in Moscow in 1986, and she became a professor in 1997.
Currently, she works in the Department of Humanities of the Tech-
nological University of Tajikistan.
Ashrafi has received a number of Fellowships , including UNESCO
Research Fellowship in France, the UK, and Ireland in 1980, and the
Iran Heritage Foundation Research Fellowship in 1997. She has also
been a Visiting Scholar with the Agha Khan Foundation in 1990 and
1991, as well as at the Institute Francais d'Études sur L'Ásie Centrale
(IFEAC), 2001.
Ashrafi's publications include Miniatures of the 16
th
 Century in MSS
of Works by Jami, 1966), The Bukhara Miniatures School of the 40s-70s
of the 16
th
 Century, 1974), Persian-Tajik Poetry in Miniatures of the
14
th
 to 17
th
 Century, 1974), The Development of Iranian Miniatures in
the 16
th
 Century, 1978), Bihzod and the Development of the Bukhara
Miniature School of the 16
th
 Century, 1987), and "The Art of the Book,"
History of central Asian Civilization (UNESCO), Paris, 2000.
Ashrafi has traveled extensively in Iran, France, Ireland, India,
Germany, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Jordan, and the United States.