[6][7] During the 10th or 11th century CE,[8] Abdirahman is believed to have then settled in modern-day Sanaag just across the Red Sea and married Dobira, the daughter of the Dir clan chief.

There are also numerous existing hagiologies in Arabic which describe Sheikh Darod's travels, works and overall life in northern Somalia, as well as his movements in Arabia before his arrival.

I.M Lewis states: Somali contingents played a notable part in the Imam's victories and Shihab ad-Din, the Muslim chronicler of the period writing between 1540 and 1560, mentions them frequently.

[18] Garad Matan being the chieftain of Geri Koombe fully supported the Jihad and served as an Adalite general, second in command to Imam Ahmed.He also sent a messenger to the tribe of Girri which was the tribe whose leader and chieftain was Mattan bin 'Utman bin Kaled, the Somali, his brother-in-law who was one of the heroic and gracious knights who died as a martyr in the battle for the Amba as will be recalled at some length later on.

[20]The Geri Koombe tribe played a pivotal role in leadership, Garad Matan ibn Uthman Al Somali was described by chronicler Shihāb al-Dīn as one of the most bravest and courageous military commanders in the Adal Sultanate.

He describes them as “famous among the infantry as solid swordsmen, and a people not given to yielding.”[21] The Marehan clan are recorded as having played the biggest role in Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi's campaigns against the Ethiopian Empire during the 16th century.

Imam Ahmad himself, alongside his successor Emir Nur ibn Al-Mujahid, as well as Garad Hirabu Goita Tedros all hailed from the Marehan clan.

He is believed to have been a descendant of Aqeel ibn Abi Talib who in turn hailed from the Quraysh, a historically significant Arab tribe that the final prophet of Islam Muhammed was from.

An ancient Islamic history book, called Aqeeliyoon by Al-Masudi, talks in detail about the descendants of Aqeel ibn Abi Talib, wherein Darod is also mentioned.

Al-Aqeeli adds that Sheikh Isma'il's sons include Abi-Bakar, Da'ud, Ahmad and Abdulsamad, whose other offspring inhabit the Hadhramaut and Mahra regions in Southern Arabia.

Traditionally, the Darod population was mostly concentrated in the northern and northeastern cities on the Gulf of Aden and upper Indian Ocean coast in the Horn of Africa.

Darod noble men ruled these settlement pockets until the European colonial powers changed the political dynamics of Somalia during the late 19th century.

In 2009, former President of Somalia, Abdullahi Yusuf visited the grave of Ismail bin Ibrahim Al-Jabarti in Yemen[27] Sheikh Darod's mawlid (birthday) is celebrated every Friday with a public reading of his manaqib and passages in the Quran.