Džafer Kulenović was born to a Bosnian Muslim family in the village Kulen Vakuf near Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary.

Kulenović was active in Vienna's Party of Rights' youth organization of pro-Croat Muslims, Svijest ("Awareness", "Consciousness"), and was elected its president.

Kulenović was also among those who made the Sarajevan Punctations, in which the YMO condemned the Serbian nationalist policy over Bosnia and Herzegovina and demanded Bosnian autonomy.

In 1939 Kulenović opposed the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina when the Banovina of Croatia was created, and he also opposed the idea of Serbian nationalist ministers and politicians that the parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were not included in the Croatian Banovina, should be included in Serbian lands.

During the German Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Kulenović didn't leave the country as most ministers did; he secretly left Belgrade and went to Užice, from where he went to Sarajevo and later to Brčko, where his family lived.

[2] He became the Deputy Prime Minister of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in November 1941 and held the position until the end of the war.

While in Syria, the expatriate Croat community in Argentina published a collection of his journalistic writings.