Ali was a son of Ja'far ibn Falah, a prominent Kutami Berber general.
Ali succeeded his brother Sulayman, a general who had served governor of Damascus in the late 10th century, as head of the family.
Abu Rakwa skipped Cairo to raid the Fayyum oasis to the south, where he was defeated by a Fatimid army under al-Fadl ibn Salih.
[3] Ali most likely is the person credited in an inscription found above the mosque of Salamiyah in central Syria for erecting a mausoleum for one of the Fatimids' "hidden" imams Abd Allah.
[4][5] In July 1013 the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bestowed the title Qutb al-Dawla (Axis of the State) on Ali and appointed him at the head of a 24,000-strong, Kutami army to rein in the Jarrahids, a Bedouin tribe which controlled Palestine.