[4] During his masters studies, the East Pakistan Literary Society was founded by Hussain with him as chairman which aimed to disseminate the message of Pakistan and forge a distinct Bengali Muslim literary idiom and held a successful conference in 1943 and presided over a EPLS conference in 1944 in Calcutta; Hussain also contributed to a Bengali fortnightly called Pakistan as well as to other newspapers like Azad, which he was invited to contribute by the invitation of Abul Kalam Shamsuddin.
He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham in 1952, where he wrote a thesis on Kipling and India, later published as a book.
[citation needed] Hussain worked as a professor of English at Umm al-Qura University in Makkah, Saudi Arabia during 1975–1985.
[4] Hussain was one of the founding members of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan, in which he served a term as its secretary.
[4] Hussain took stance against the separation of East Pakistan as an independent country during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
[2] In March 1971, the then Vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka, Justice Abu Sayed Chowdhury resigned from the post protesting the killing of two students by Pakistani Army.
[7] In 2021 Pakistan’s Hum TV released an historical drama based on Hussain’s book Wastes of Times, a miniseries called Khaab Toot Jaatay Hain.