His Eminence Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazadeh was born in 1949 in Azerbaijan. He received his religious education at the Miri-Arab Madrasah in Bukhara and later graduated from the Islamic University of Tashkent in Uzbekistan. His Eminence serves as the spiritual leader of Muslims in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, and as the Secretary-General of the Baku International Centre for Interreligious and Inter-civilizational Cooperation. He is also the Chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Board and Co-chair of the Council of Religions within the Commonwealth of Independent States. Furthermore, He is a member of the Muslim Council of Elders, the Board of Directors of the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), and the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.