Although Ahmad Khatib was an orthodox Sunni Muslim, he still hoped to reconcile the matrilineal system in Minangkabau with the laws of inheritance prescribed in the Quran. Through his Minangkabau students who studied in Mecca as well as those he taught in Indonesia, he encouraged a modified Minangkabau culture based on al-Quran and the Sunnah.
His parents were Abdullatief Khatib and Limbak Urai. In 1870 he attended a Dutch school and then continued his studies at Kweekschool in Bukittinggi, Sumatra.[3] Later, he moved to the Ottoman Empire to receive a nominal Islamic education under the guidance of the local jurists and settled in Mecca for the rest of his life.
His eldest son Abdulkareem owned a bookstore in Makkah. While his other son Abdulmalik Alkhatib was an ambassador of the Ashraf to Egypt. Another of his sons, Sheikh Abdulhameed Alkhateeb, was the first Saudi Arabian ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. His grandson, Fouad Abdulhameed Alkhateeb, was a Saudi Arabian ambassador, humanitarian, author, and businessman. In his capacity as a diplomat, he represented his homeland in Pakistan, Iraq, the United States of America, Nigeria, Turkey, Bangladesh, Nepal, and finally as Saudi ambassador to Malaysia.