He was a native of Singkel and had studied Islamic science at various centres in Arabia among 1640 and 1661. Rauf returned to Aceh and taught and wrote for over thirty years. He was the first translator of the Qur'an into Malay. The most powerful expression of the growing influence of Islam was the spread of Malay language in the Arabic script, for which credit must be given to people like Abdul Rauf, Hamza Fansuri and Nur al Din al Raniri.