His father, Israil Khan, had moved with his family from the village of Dhudhuria in Nagarpur, Tangail to Rangoon, British Burma in order to tutor the children of the deposed Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.

[4] His father died when he was young whilst his mother, Bolonnessa Begum, got herself in a long-drawn-out litigation with his uncle on proprietary rights to his vast wealth and establishments.

[5] Completing his graduation program, Khan joined Rangoon University as a lecturer in history and political science in 1931 and worked there until the outbreak of World War II.

[1] When Rangoon came under fire from the advancing Japanese army, Khan escaped by trekking through the mountains to reach his village home.

In 1946, he became the General Secretary of the Bengal Red Cross Society, a job he retained when moving to Dhaka after the partition of India in 1947.

[1] In 1953, Khan joined University of Dhaka as a secretary to Sayed Moazzem Hossain, the then vice-chancellor, who was succeeded by Walter Allen Jenkins eight months later.

Upon return, he joined as the librarian of the Central Library of the university in June 1956,[8][9] a position he held until his retirement in 1972.

He published a news bulletin for the University of Dhaka and edited the Eastern Librarian as the founder editor until 1976.

Nearly a quarter of century later the Tangail Association introduced a gold medal in his name, an honor given to other distinguished figures such as Maulana Bhasani and Abu Sayeed Chowdhury.