Muzharul Islam was born on 25 December 1923 in Murshidabad. He went to the United States in 1950 where he received his bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Oregon. In 1956, he received a scholarship to study tropical architecture at the AA School of Architecture, London. In 1961, he completed his post-graduation under Paul Rudolph from Yale University. At Yale Stanley Tigerman was one of his classmates, and there he came in touch with Louis I Kahn. Muzharul Islam began his career by designing two buildings in the Shahbag area in 1955 – Dhaka University Library and College of Arts and Crafts. Between 1958 and 1964, Islam was an architect in C&B Dept of the Government of East Pakistan.