[2][3] Nurul Islam Nahid was born on 5 July 1945, to a Bengali Muslim family in the village of Kashba in Beanibazar, Sylhet District.

[5] His political career began whilst he was studying at the Murari Chand College in Sylhet, and continued at the University of Dhaka.

[citation needed] During the time of the agitation against Ayub Khan, Nahid was active in the student movements against military rule in Pakistan and the mass upsurge of 1966.

[citation needed] Nahid served as the vice-president of the 38th session of UNESCO General Conference for the term of 2015 to 2017.

The elder daughter, Nadia Nandita Islam Tinni is an assistant professor of linguistics at Dhaka University who married Gonojagoron Moncho spokesman Imran H Sarkar.