Sultonbek Aksakolov

Sultonbek Aksakolov works as a History Faculty at the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Central Asia (UCA) functioning in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.

At UCA he teaches courses on the History of Central Asia, Sociology and Ethics for the undergraduate students. He has also served as the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at UCA. His research focuses on the history of Islam in Soviet Badakhshan, intellectual, history, sacred sites and natural and historical heritages in Central Asia.  He has been leading a research project on Creation of Repository for Historical, Cultural and Natural Sites, supported by the grant from International Development Association of the World Bank Group (WBG) to implement the Tajikistan Rural Economy Development Project (REDP).

Sultonbek has received his M.Phil in Modern Societies and Global Transformations from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2002 and Ph.D. in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London in 2014. He has a BA degree in Tajik Philology from Khorog State University in Tajikistan, and completed a Graduate Program in Islamic Studies and Humanities at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, UK.

He has been working as a consultant, researcher, editor, examiner and translator for several international organizations, including International Baccalaureate, and Chevening UK Government’s global scholarship program. Sultonbek has published articles on the history of the Ismailis of Central Asia, Islamic education, and development initiatives in Central Asia. Currently he is working on his monograph on Islam in Soviet Badakhshan, which analyses the Soviet state archives on religion.