Chairman’s Biography

Mr. Salahuddin Rabbani, the eldest son of the martyred Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, was born on May 5, 1971 in Kabul. He was only a child when his father was forced to immigrate to Pakistan due to the pressures from the authoritarian regime of Dawood Khan. Salahuddin Rabbani graduated from high school in Pakistan while witnessing the plight of Afghan refugees in that country. After graduating from high school, he went to Saudi Arabia for higher education. In 1995, he received his Bachelor Degree in Marketing and Management from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia.

After earning his bachelor’s degree, Rabbani started his first job in the “financial accounting” department of Saudi Arabian Oil Company, and after that, from 1996 to 1998, he was working in the private sector in the UAE.

Salahuddin Rabbani went to the United Kingdom in 1999 to obtain his master’s degree, and in 2001 he graduated from Kingston University in the field of “Management and Business”. In 2002, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan. From 2003 to 2006, he worked as the political counselor at the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York. During this period, he represented Afghanistan in the first committee (international security and disarmament) of the United Nations General Assembly. In 2006 he left the Foreign Ministry to pursue his second master’s degree in International Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

Upon completion of his second master’s degree, Salahuddin Rabbani returned to Afghanistan in 2008 and served as a political affairs adviser to his father Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Jihad and Resistance, in the political section of Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan. In 2010, he was appointed as the Ambassador of Afghanistan to Turkey where he served until September 2011.
Two weeks after the martyrdom of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani on September 20, 2011, Salahuddin Rabbani was elected as the interim head of Jamiat-e-Islami by the Leadership Council of the Party. Later, he was elected as the head of Jamiat-e- Islami by a gathering which was attended by 500 high-ranking officials of the party. On April 14, 2012, the members of the High Peace Council unanimously elected Salahuddin Rabbani as the new chairman of the Council and the successor of the martyred Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. Subsequently, the appointment was formally announced by the then President Hamid Karzai.

In 2014, Salahuddin Rabbani formed the largest political coalition, in which Jamiat-e-Islami had the pivotal role. This led to the formation of the “Reform and Reintegration”electoral team with the candidacy of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.
After the controversies of the 2014 elections and the formation of a National Unity Government, Rabbani received vote of confidence as the Minister of Foreign Affairs by the House of Representatives on October 29, 2014. On October 23, 2019, he resigned from his post as the Foreign Minister because of the continued undermining and sidelining of government institutions by the presidential palace.

Since 2011, due to security concerns raised by some prominent members of Jamiat-e- Islami; the party’s congress could not be held, and as an alternative plan, the composition of the leadership council was increased to sixty-four members, and Mr. Rabbani’s chairmanship was reaffirmed by the council.

In 2019, while some prominent figures from his party joined other constituencies, in the last hours of the presidential election registration period, he was able to form another coalition centered on the Jamiat-e-Islami. However, when the elections were rigged due to widespread voter fraud, Rabbani did not accept the fraudulent results and called for the annulment of the results. He did not take part in the Government that emerged from fraud and continued his political activities outside the Government.