The 21st International Scientific Conference for Orientalists Named After Academician Ubaydulla Karimov was coordinated by the Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences together with Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies, IRCICA and the Council of Young Scholars of the Academy, and held in hybrid format on 15 April 2026. IRCICA has been one of the international partner institutions of this conference series for several years up to now. The conference is dedicated to the Academician Ubaydulla Karimov (1920-1997) in recognition of his fifty years of research and teaching on Central Asia as a center of science and scholarship in world history.
The 21st conference was opened by Prof. Dr. Bahrom Abdukhalimov, Vice-President of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences and Director of the Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies. Greeting addresses were given by Prof. Dr. Mahmud Erol Kılıç, Director General of IRCICA (pre-recorded), and Prof. Dr. Gulchehre Rikhsiyeva, Rector of the Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies. The plenary session presentations heard Prof. Dr. Ashirbek Muminov, IRCICA, Advisor to the Director General on Central Asian Studies and International Relations, on “Shihab ad-Din Marjani in the History of Islamic Civilization in Central Asia” and five other scholars highlighting some eminent figures from the history of science and scholarship in the region. The conference received important studies contributed by participants from different countries, under the following session themes: “Source Studies and Text Studies” (21 papers); “History and Civilization of Eastern Countries” (25 papers); “Islamic Studies” (17 papers).
The series of conferences held with wide multidisciplinary scopes generated an abundant collection of proceedings in Oriental studies and Islamic studies with special focus on Central Asia. The proceedings of the 21st conference have also been published.
