Ğabderrəşit Rəxmətullin (later Reşit Rahmeti Arat), son of Ğismətulla, was born in İske Öcem, a village located approximately 50 km northwest of Kazan.

[2][3][4] Arat traveled to Germany in 1922, where by coincidence, he got to know a Polish Tatar named Yakup Şinkeviç, and partly due to this, started taking active roles in Turkic student associations.

He submitted his thesis in 1927, entitled Die Hilfsverben und Verbaladverbien im Altaischen (The Auxiliary Verbs and Verbal Adverbs in Altaic).

Later in 1933, the newly founded Istanbul University invited him to join the Faculty of Letters as a professor of Turkish language.

[3] Between the years 1923 and 1933, Arat published multiple works: Die Legende von Oghuz Kaghan (with Wilhelm Bang Kaup), Das Buddhistische Sûtra Säkiz Yükmäk (also with Wilhelm Bang Kaup, though his classmate Anne-Marie von Gabain also contributed) and Türkische Turfan-Texte VII, which consists of 42 Old Uyghur texts on astronomy and astrology, published by Wolfram Eberhard, combined with his explanations of Chinese words in the texts.

A third volume was published fifteen years after his death, in 1979, by Arat's students Kemal Eraslan, Osman Fikri Sertkaya, and Nuri Yüce.

The second seminal publication from Arat was a volume formed of quatrains, Atebetü’l-hakayık, written by Edib Ahmed in Karakhanid (Hakaniye) Turkish.

Third seminal work from Arat was Eski Türk Şiiri (“Old Turkish poems”), which contained 33 verse texts, written by Uyghurs.

A man who catalogued his estate, Osman Fikri Sertkaya, published Arat's articles in multiple periodicals and also in a 1987 book in Ankara, titled Makaleler.