[1][2] He was born in November 1949 in the village of Hamadoni, in the Danghara District of the Kulob Oblast.

He joined the Soviet Army in 1970, and served as a brigade battalion accountancy director.

During the Tajik Civil War that began in 1992, he remained loyal to the central government, organizing operations against rebel groups.

In 2010, during a dinner meeting with the departing Richard E. Hoagland, Khayrulloyev allegedly questioned NATO's attempts to bring Georgia into the alliance, saying that "Even the Warsaw Pact didn't subsume losers!"

[3] His brother Mirale Khayrulloyev was the former head of the Khatlon administration of the Agency for Drug Control.