Amir-Abdollahian was born in the small Semna Province city of Damghan in 1964. Amir-Abdollahian apparently did not enlist to fight in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), instead of registering for entrance in the Foreign Ministry College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He entered the diplomatic corps in the “Persian Gulf First Office” as a political analyst in 1992 or early 1993.
Amir-Abdollahian advanced unusually fast in the Foreign Ministry due to his strong ties with the IRGC. After receiving his master’s in international affairs from Tehran University, Abdollahian, was promoted to the position of deputy Ambassador in Baghdad at the age of 33, a very sensitive posting. After serving in that post for four years, Amir-Abdollahiab moved to the Foreign Ministry Persian Gulf First Political Desk Directorate in 2001. During the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Amir-Abdollahian served as deputy to the special assistant for Iraq in the Foreign Ministry.
In 2007, Amir-Abdollahian was assigned to a team of Iranian negotiators who met with an American delegation led by then-Ambassador Ryan Crocker to discuss Iraq. Amir-Abdollahian was joined by the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi and his eventual successor, Hassan Danai-Far. Both men were senior Qods Force officers.
In 2007, then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Amir-Abdollahian as Tehran’s Ambassador to Bahrain, another sensitive Arab file. As scholar Alex Vatanka notes in his biography of Amir-Abdollahian, his “first few years were distinguished by his ability to help reduce tensions with the Sunni governing Bahraini elites that rule over a Shiite majority. On his watch, Iran and Bahrain began to look for an expansion in trade, and serious talks were held about Iranian gas exports to Bahrain. But Amir-Abdollahian’s gains in Bahrain were nearly entirely overturned when a former Iranian speaker of the Parliament, Ali-Akbar Nateq Nouri, in 2009, called Bahrain ‘Iran’s 14th province.’ This left the Bahrainis fuming, and it fell on Amir-Abdollahian to reassure the Bahrainis about Iran’s respect for the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
In 2010, Amir-Abdollahian was appointed to the Foreign Ministry, Persian Gulf and Middle East Area Director-General. Several accounts in Iranian media state that he held the post for a year. At the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011, Amir-Abdollahian was appointed deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, a position he held for five years, including through the early years of the Rouhani administration that came to power in 2013.