Farrukh Ahmad was born in the village of Majhail of Sreepur Upazila of Magura District. He was the second son of Syed Hatem Ali and Begum Rawshan. He graduated from Khulna Zila School in 1937 and did his IA from Ripon College, Kolkata in 1939. He then enrolled at the prestigious Scottish Church College to pursue a BA (Hons) in Philosophy and English Literature, but was unable to his complete studies there.Subsequently, he studied at the City College. He married his cousin Saieda Taieba Khatun in 1942.He started his professional life in Inspector General (IG) Prison Office in 1943. He worked for Civil Supply for a short time in 1944.
As a student, Farrukh Ahmad had been attracted to the radical humanism of Manabendra Nath Roy and had participated in leftist politics. From the forties, however, he supported the Pakistan movement to have an independent Muslim state created within the region of South Asia from the British Indian empire. Despite his Pakistani and Islamic ideals, he supported the Language Movement in 1952 and, later, the liberation war of Bangladesh.