During his interfaith journey for about four decades Dr. Kazi Nurul Islam fortunate to have the opportunity to study religion under the guidance of eminent scholars like Professor G.C Dev, Professor Saiyed Abdul Hai and Professor Abdur Rabb of Dhaka University, Bangladesh; Professor N. S.S. Raman, Professor Badrul Hasan Abedi and Professor Shobha Rani Basu of Banaras Hindu University, India; Professor C.W. Troll and Professor Ibrahim Surti of the Centre for Islam and Christian-Muslim Relation of Birmingham University, UK; Professor Masayasu Takahashi of Kokusikan University, and Professor Nakanara Hajime of Tokyo University, Japan; Professor Richard Hect of California University at Santa Barbara, Professor Ben Hubbard of California State University at Fullerton, Professor Leonard Swidler and Professor of Mahmood Ayub of Temple University, USA. All of these scholars have been a great source of his inspiration for his involvement with inter-religious and intercultural dialogue. I was particularly inspired by my long and frank discussion with former Minister of Religious Affairs of Indonesia Professor Mukti Ali and H.E Dr. Abdur Rahman Wahid, the late President of Indonesia.
Since 1972 he I had many occasions to attend international seminars and conferences in different parts of the globe. Each time he was shocked to observe the limitations of most of the scholars in facing scholars belonging to other faiths. In 2003 he went to USA as a Fulbright Scholar to study Religious Pluralism in USA and in 2006 he went to USA once again as a Senior Fulbright Visiting Fellow to study “The Inner Significance of Jewish Festivals”. During his 9 months stay in USA he visited many universities and had rare opportunities to attend around 100 inter-religious and intercultural dialogues and he strongly felt the need of a Centre for Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue at Dhaka University to train young boys and girls for dialogues and to improve there relations of Muslims with the people of other faiths.
After coming back to Bangladesh he submitted a proposal to the University authority to establish a Centre for Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue. This proposal was approved by the Academic Council and by the Syndicate of the University on March 04, 2008 and the Centre for Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue came into being.