[1] Razak was Minister of Education and National Planning, and was chairman of the Burma Muslim Congress.

Abdul Razak was born in Meiktila, Upper Burma, on 20 January 1898 to a Bamar Buddhist, Nyein Hla, and Sheik Abdul Rahman, a wealthy Indian police inspector.

While his brothers and sisters chose to be Buddhists, he maintained the Muslim name Razak, in honor of his father.

Although nominally Muslim, Razak was a secularist who deeply loved Burma and encouraged unity in diversity.

[citation needed] In 1920, Razak was the first Burmese organiser of a boycott to the British colonial education system.