With the start of the birth centenary celebrations of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1989, the need for a research institute devoted to the study of his life and writings as well as area studies, especially to the research in secular Islam in Asian countries was felt by the governor of West Bengal, Prof. Nurul Hasan, who took the main initiative in founding this institute in Calcutta.

[1] It took a few years before such a plan could be fully implemented, and the foundation stone of the institute was laid on a newly acquired plot close to the Salt Lake stadium in Calcutta in 1993 by the then president of India, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, in the presence of the then Human Resource Development Minister Shri Arjun Singh, Prof. Nurul Hasan, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Shri Jyoti Basu, the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Dr. Najma Heptullah, and the then Minister for Higher Education of the Government of West Bengal, Shri Satyasadhan Chakraborty.

Prof. Barun De, formerly first Director, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, was given the responsibility of organising the event.

Soon the institute shifted to 567, Diamond Harbour Road, Calcutta, where it temporarily occupied two large floors of a rented house.

Later, at the turn of the present century, it was shifted to Maulana Azad's house, where both the institute and its museum were located until 2010.

A new building, named 'Azad Bhavan', has been subsequently built on the one-acre plot given to it in Salt Lake, where the institute has now been shifted.