[2] Their political involvement has traditionally revolved around the Bangladesh Awami League.

Sheikh Abdul Awal was born in a suburb of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.

[1] During the early eighteenth century, Sheikh Abdul Awal had travelled to Chittagong to pursue business and to promote Islam in the region of Bengal, similar to that of the founders of other Sheikh families of Bengal.

Sheikh Jan Mahmud's son, Sheikh Borhanuddin, continued to run that wholesale business and eventually shifted back to East Bengal.

He married a girl from the Kazi family of Tungipara and permanently settled there.