Background
Shahidullah was born in Peyara village, 24 Pargana, West Bengal (now in India). His father, Mafizuddin Ahmed, was a warden of a shrine.
Shahidullah was born in Peyara village, 24 Pargana, West Bengal (now in India). His father, Mafizuddin Ahmed, was a warden of a shrine.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Sorbonne University in 1928 for his research on the dialects of the Charyapada.
He is acknowledged as one of the greatest Bengalis of all time. Shahidullah passed his school final Entrance exam in 1904 from Howrah Zila School. In 1906 he passed the FA exam from Presidency College in Kolkata.
He received the Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Sanskrit in 1910 from City College, Kolkata, and Master of Arts in 1912 in Comparative Philology from the University of Calcutta.
Shahidullah began teaching in Jessore Zila School in 1908. After working as the Headmaster of Sitakunda High School for some time in 1914, he started to practice law at Bashirhat in 24 Parganas.
He was elected Vice-Chairman of the town’s municipality. Later, he worked as Sharatchandra Lahiri Research Fellow (1919-1921) under Dinesh Chandra Senator at the University of Calcutta and joined the University of Dhaka as a Lecturer in 1921 in Sanskrit and Bangla.
During his period at the University of Dhaka he did research on the origins of the Bengali language.
In 1925, he presented his thesis that Bangla as a language originated from Gaudi or Magadhi Prakrit.He is a principal of Government A. H. college,Bogra from july 1944 to October 1948.