The Nurul Islam Mosque was founded in 1844 by a congregation of Imam Achmat van Bengalen’s students. It stands in a small lane off Buitengracht Street, about one hundred metres from the Auwal Mosque, the first mosque in South Africa. The Nurul Islam Mosque is the third oldest mosque in the country.

The leader of the students who founded the Nurul Islam Mosque was Tuan Guru’s younger son, Imam Abdol Rauf. Tuan Guru, whose full name was Imam Abdullah ibn Kadi Abdus Salaam, was the son of a qadi, a Prince from Tidore in the Indonesian Islands of Ternate. He was born in 1712 and could trace his geneology to the Sultan of Morocco. In April 1780, he was brought to the Cape as a ‘state prisoner’ for politically conspiring with the English against the Dutch in Indonesia. Along with other Muslims convicted of the same crime, they were incarcerated on Robben Island.

It took over sixty years after his arrival in the Cape for the Nurul Islam Mosque to be built. In the 1830s, or thereabouts, the community which used to meet together was known as the Mohamedan Shafee Congregation. It was established by Abdol Rakiep together with his brother Abdol Rauf, sons of the Imam Achmat van Bengalen. On 27 February 1844 the Mohamedan Shafee Congregation received a transference of property and were able to build the mosque with Abdol Rauf as the Imam.