The college offers both post-graduate (English, Zoology and Urdu) and under-graduate courses in a number of subjects in the three streams of arts, science and commerce.

The institution was the culmination of efforts of notable Muslim leaders like A. K. Fazlul Huq, then minister of education of Bengal, Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury and Sir Abdul Rahim.

With an objective to promote Islamic learning and general education among the Muslim population in British India and with the sustained efforts of contemporary education minister of Bengal, A. K. Fazlul Haque, on 9 December 1924, Lord Lytton, the contemporary Governor of Bengal laid the foundation stone of Islamia College under the affiliation of University of Calcutta.

[3] In the 1940, the future founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, studied at the college and stayed at the Baker Hostel.

[6] On 23 February 2011, the government of Bangladesh and India installed a bust of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at room 23 and 24 of Baker Hostel of the college.

[4][7] The All Bengal Minority Youth Federation demanded the removal of the bust of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from the museum as they deemed the statue offensive to Islamic sensibilities.