Shakeel Badayuni was born in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Mohammed Jamaal Ahmed Sokhta Qadiri, wanted him to have a good career, thus he arranged Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Hindi tuition for Shakeel at home. His inclination towards poetry was not hereditary like other shayars.One of his distant relatives, Zia-ul-Qadiri Badayuni, was a religious shayar. Shakeel was influenced by him and the contemporary environment of Badayun led him to poetry.

When he joined Aligarh Muslim University in 1936, he started participating in inter-college, inter-university mushairas and won frequently. In 1940, he married Salma, who was his distant relative and had been living in a common house with him since childhood, however, the purdah system was vogue in their family and they were not close. After completing his BA, he moved to Delhi as a supply officer, but continued participating in mushairas, earning fame nationwide. Those were the days of shayars who wrote about the downtrodden sections of society, their upliftment, the betterment of society and all. But Shakeel had an altogether different taste – his poetry was romantic and close to the heart.Shakeel used to say:

Main Shakeel Dil Ka Hoon TarjumanKeh Mohabbaton Ka Hoon RaazdaanMujhe Fakhr Hai Meri ShayariMeri Zindagi Se Juda Nahin

During his Aligarh days, Badauni also started learning Urdu poetry formally from Hakim Abdul Waheed 'Ashk' Bijnori.

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