Shariatullah is generally acknowledged to have been born into a Bengali Muslim family of Taluqdars in Char Shamail, a village in present-day Shibchar, Madaripur. The exact date or time of his birth and the name of his mother has not been mentioned by any peer-reviewed historical text, but some have estimated it to be circa 1781 CE. Coming from a family with no high educational background, his father was Abd al-Jalil Taluqdar, a landowner who had farming as his primary source of income.