He was the ruling Emir when the British explorer Richard F. Burton visited the city for ten days in January 1855, which he later described in his book, First Footsteps in East Africa.

"[3] Burton described Emir Ahmad at their first meeting as "an etiolated youth twenty-four or twenty-five years old, plain and thin-bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows and protruding eyes.

His dress was a white turban tightly twisted round a tall conical cap of red velvet, like the old Turkish headgear of our painters.

"[4] The Emir's health at the time was "infirm", according to Burton, who adds, "Some attribute his weakness to a fall from a horse, others declare him to have been poisoned by one of his wives.

As the Amharas say, the 'belly of the master is not known': even the Garad Mohammed, though summoned to council at all times, in sickness as in health, dares not offer uncalled-for advice, and the queen dowager, the Gisti Fatima, was threaten with fetters if she persisted in interference.