On 24 January 2015, Rahman died due to cardiac arrest while at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

[1] He belonged to a notable Bengali Muslim political family of Mandals hailing from Bagbari in Gabtali, Bogra District.

His paternal grandmother, Jahanara Khatun, was the wife of Mansur Rahman, a chemist who specialised in paper and ink chemistry and worked for a government department at the Writers' Building of Calcutta.

[9] After the death of his father Ziaur Rahman, his mother Begum Khaleda Zia joined politics and took the lead of the nationalist party.

[7][14] This initiative helped develop Mohammad Ashraful, Aftab Ahmed, Shahriar Nafees, Mashrafe Mortaza, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim and many others who later became an influential part of the Bangladeshi cricket team.

Water pipes were fit in to develop a drainage facility, and afterwards the ground was filled up with rock chips, sand, and grass.

After the military-backed takeover of power by a technocrat government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, Arafat Rahman's business office and house were raided by joint forces on multiple occasions.

In April 2007, he was picked up from his home to pressure his mother and the former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia to leave Bangladesh as a part of the "Minus Two Formula".

By August 2007, all of their bank accounts were frozen and by early September, Arafat and his mother Begum Khaleda Zia were sued and arrested.

His lawyers claimed these transactions were fabricated, and that the funds in question were to have been transferred by a Singaporean businessman with no obvious ties to Rahman.