He is known for having made several major contributions to Islam in South Africa, including the translation of his 1877 work, Bayân al-Dîn, into the Afrikaans language, then in a very early stage of development.

He is a direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Zayd ibn Ali, son of Imam Zayn al-Abidin,[citation needed] and was of Arab and Kurdish origin.

He studied at the madrassa originally set up by his ancestor Abu Nasr Al-Amiyr Sulaymaan Al-Qurashiy Al-Amjadiy (c. 1060 - c.1134) for any who wish to learn.

This came about after Queen Victoria had written to Sultan Abdulaziz to ask him to send someone, as discord had arisen among the Cape Malays between groups who had been isolated from their mother tongue and original religious traditions.

On 3 September[1] or October 1862, an Ottoman Imperial decree was issued for the dispatch of Abu Bakr and Omar Lutfi Effendi to the Cape.

[4][5] Other imams in the Cape were mostly trying to teach the Shafi`i school of Islamic jurisprudence, but were influenced by cultural practices from their places of origin.

[3] Shortly after Effendi's arrival, Muslim men in the Cape started wearing the fez due to his influence;[4] they had formerly worn a conical style of hat.

He gained notoriety in 1869 after ruling that rock lobster and snoek, two staple foods in the Cape, were sinful (haraam), and there was an unsuccessful petition run to have him removed.

[citation needed] Effendi died on 29 June 1880 at his home in Bree Street, Cape Town, and was buried in the Tana Baru Cemetery.

[3] He published the Arabic Afrikaans Uiteensetting van die godsdiens (Bayân al-Dîn (meaning "the exposition of the religion") in 1877, printed by the Turkish Ministry of Education in Istanbul.

It was written in a modified Arabic script in which diacritic signs are used to indicate the pronunciation of Afrikaans, and bears testimony to the slave origins of the language, which was not later accredited by the White Afrikaners, especially during the era of apartheid in the mid-20th century.

[citation needed] Abu Bakr Effendi's first wife was from Erzurum with whom he had children but were left in the Ottoman Empire on his mission to South Africa.

[citation needed] On 20 August 2020, 15 of Abu Bakr Effendi's South African descendants became Turkish citizens by presidential decree.