At around eight years old, Shariatullah lost his father and was then taken care of by his uncle, Azim ad-Din, who nurtured him in a very loving manner and made Shariatullah's youth "carefree" with little concern for discipline. However, when he reached the age of twelve, Shariatullah ran away to Calcutta supposedly due to being reprimanded by his uncle on a certain occasion. There, he met a Quran teacher known as Maulana Basharat Ali who subsequently enrolled Shariatullah into his classes. Ali had a crucial impact on the direction of Shariatullah's life, encouraging him to study the Arabic and Persian languages, something that would later allow him to respectively develop a comprehensive understanding of Islamic texts and master the lingua franca of the subcontinent. Shariatullah reached proficieny in these two languages in two years.