Ashrafi was born in Tashkent, Uzbek SSR into an ethnic Tajik family.
[3] She graduated from the Taskhent Musical School in 1954; in 1959 she received a degree in art history from the Moscow State University.
From that year until 1961 she worked in the Oriental Studies Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow; beginning in 1962 she was a postgraduate student at that institution's Institute of Oriental Studies, graduating in 1968.
From 1969 until 1971 she was employed at the Tajik Academy of Sciences in the Department of Philosophy.
In 1986, Ashrafi earned a Doctor of Arts degree (similar to a habilitation).