The remains of Rokeya's childhood house in Pairaband, Rangpur, pictured in 2012.

Rokeya was born in 1880, to a Bengali Muslim family in the village of Pairaband, Rangpur, Bengal Presidency, (erstwhile undivided Bengal) .Her ancestors served in the military and judiciary during the Mughal regime.Her father, Zahiruddin Muhammad Abu Ali Haidar Saber, was a zamindar and a multi-lingual intellectual. He married four times; his marriage to Rahatunnessa Sabera Chaudhurani resulted in the birth of Rokeya, who had two sisters and three brothers, one of whom died in childhood. Rokeya's eldest brother Ibrahim Saber, and her immediate elder sister Karimunnesa Khanam Chaudhurani, both had a major influence on her life. Karimunnesa wanted to study Bengali, the language of the majority in Bengali people, against her family's wish who preferred to use Arabic and Persian as the media of education and communication. Ibrahim taught English and Bengali to Rokeya and Karimunnesa. Karimunnesa married at the age of fourteen and later became a poet. Both of her sons, Abdul Karim Ghaznavi and Abdul Halim Ghaznavi, became politicians and occupied ministerial portfolios under British authorities.citation needed

Rokeya with her husband, Sakhawat Hossain (1898)

Rokeya married at the age of 18, in 1898 to 38-year-old Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hossain. He was an Urdu-speaking deputy magistrate of Bhagalpur (a present-day district of Bihar state). He earned his bachelor of agriculture degree from England and was a member of Royal Agricultural Society of England. He married Rokeya after the death of his first wife. As a liberal, he encouraged Rokeya to continue learning Bengali and English. He also encouraged her to write, and on his advice, she adopted Bengali as the principal language for her literary works.[citation needed]

Rokeya launched her literary career in 1902 with a Bengali essay entitled Pipasa (Thirst). She later published the books Matichur (1905) and Sultana's Dream (1908) before her husband died in 1909. In Sultana's Dream, Rokeya wrote reversing the roles of men and women in which women were the dominant sex and the men were subordinate and confined to the mandana (the male equivalent of the zenana). She also depicts an alternative, feminist vision of science, in which inventions such as solar ovens, flying cars, and cloud condensers are used to benefit the whole of society.It is regarded as a notable and influential satire. She wrote regularly for the Saogat, Mahammadi, Nabaprabha, Mahila, Bharatmahila, Al-Eslam, Nawroz, Mahe Nao, Bangiya Musalman Sahitya Patrika, The Mussalman, Indian Ladies Magazine and others.

Five months after Rokeya's husband's death, she established a high school, naming it Sakhawat Memorial Girls' High School It started in Bhagalpur, a traditionally Urdu-speaking area, with five students. A dispute with her husband's family over property forced her to move the school in 1911 to Calcutta, a Bengali-speaking area.She ran the school for 24 years.

Rokeya founded the Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam (Islamic Women's Association), which was active in holding debates and conferences regarding the status of women and education. She advocated reform, particularly for women, and believed that parochialism and excessive conservatism were principally responsible for the relatively slow development of Muslims in British India. Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam organised events for social reforms based on the original teachings of Islam that, according to her, were lost.[citation needed]

Rokeya wrote in a number of genres: short stories, poems, essays, novels and satirical writings. She developed a distinctive literary style, characterised by creativity, logic and a wry sense of humour. She started writing in the Nabanoor from about 1903, under the name of Mrs R S Hossain. However, there is an opinion that her first published writing Pipasa appeared in the Nabaprabha in 1902. Her writings called upon women to protest against injustices and break the social barriers that discriminated against them.