Abdirahman first began his study of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) and Aqīdah (Creed) under Haji Yusuf bin Mohamed Al-Awrtabley of the Awrtable Darood clan, his maternal cousin.

The Emir, impressed as he was with this Somali man's grasp of the Arabic language and poetry without ever having set foot in the Arabian peninsula before, allocated Haji Ali with a large plot of land.

Upon his return home to the Majerteen Sultanate after studying in Mecca and Bagdhad, Haji Ali would begin to start spreading dawah and called his people to stop certain practices that were forbidden in Islam.

Planning to establish an Islamic Emirate, Sheikh Ali arrived in Merca in 1847 with five boats, 150 followers, substantial quantities of firearms and ammunitions estimated to be 40 rifles and 4 cannons just four years after the defeat of Bardera Jama'a by the Geledi Sultanate which ruled over vast territories of the southern Somali regions.

It is established that Ali had secret plans for himself to form a colony at the port of Mungiya (the point where Shabelle River was closest to the Indian Ocean coast), and had obtained permission from Sultan Yusuf of Geledi.

[4] Haji Ali penned a letter he sent to the people of Barawa, in that he considered the Geledi Sultanate a polity adhering to a deviated sect (Firqa Al-Dalah).

Following his defeat, Sheikh Ali stated that "in reality, our [death] and if you are among the deviated sect which Sultan Yusuf leads, there is no relation between us, and your blood will not be saved from us."

The hardline stance of Haji Ali, to the propagation of Islam among his people, his mobilization of armed followers, and his siding with the Bimaal clan against Geledi Sultanate displays the militant ideology akin to the Bardera Jama, the new Wahhabi tendency that was emerging across the Muslim world at the time.