At a glance
Era 10- Dates
- c. 1615-1693 CE
- Who
- Scholar of Aceh who wrote the first complete Malay commentary on the Quran
- Era
- Islam in South-East Asia & China
ProfileAbd al-Rauf al-Singkili
Abd al-Rauf was born around 1615 in Singkil, on the west coast of Sumatra. As a young man he travelled to Arabia and spent about nineteen years studying in Makkah, Madinah and Yemen with the leading scholars of his day.
He returned to Aceh around 1661 and served as chief judge and adviser under the queens who ruled the sultanate in those years. He taught many students who spread across the archipelago. He wrote in Malay on law, faith and Sufism, aiming to make learning available to people who did not read Arabic.
His best-known work, the Tarjuman al-Mustafid, was the first complete commentary on the Quran in the Malay language. It was copied by hand for generations and later printed in Istanbul, Cairo and Makkah. He died in 1693 and is buried near the mouth of the Aceh river.
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