 He left Tajikistan for Moscow, Russia.The Norwegian Author's Union invited Sobir to attend the Freedom of Expression symposium focusing on seven writers who had been jailed or exiled, including Salmon Rushdie and Bozor Sobir.In 1995, Sobir moved his family to the United States, where he worked at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, teaching Tajik in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization.