Ambassador M Serajul Islam is a retired career diplomat. He started his diplomatic career in the erstwhile Pakistan Foreign Service (ex-PFS) and thereafter pursued a 3 decades-long diplomatic career in the Bangladesh Foreign Service. He was Bangladesh' Ambassador to Egypt (1999-2002) and Japan (2002-2006).

Ambassador Islam has an undergraduate and a post-graduate degree in Political Science from Dhaka University. He taught Political Science at both Dhaka University and Chittagong University for brief periods in the early 1970s.

Ambassador Islam has been a columnist on foreign and strategic affairs and politics of Bangladesh for the leading English dailies of Dhaka upon his retirement from diplomatic service in 2006. He now writes regular weekly columns for New Age, a leading English daily and infrequently for Manab Zamin, a leading Bengali newspaper of Dhaka. He is one of the founding Directors of The Dhaka Forum.

Ambassador Islam was a keen sportsman in his student days. He captained the Dhaka University Tennis team.