His reign coincided with a period of upheavals in Sudanic History that saw a series of religious Jihads waged by the Fula People.
His death marked the end of the Kutumbawa line of Hausa aristocrats in Kano and the fall of the 800 year old Bagauda Dynasty.
The Kano Sultanate was consistently at war to maintain hold of trade routes and his reign came at a time when famine was a regular occurrence.
It was made of a Quran covered in multiple layers of goat skin or cow hide introduced around the 16th century in the reign of Muhammad Zaki.
Alwali's father Yaji, endured a bitter relationship with his brother, the then Sultan Muhammad Sharefa and his sons who succeeded him.
Kano was home to a number of Fula clans who had begun settling since the 14th century including the Jobawa, Sullubawa, Danejawa, Yolawa, Yerimawa, Modibawa, Gyanawa, Zarawa, Toronkawa, Mundubawa, and Dambazawa.
The Kutumbawa Kings had alienated themselves from their masses through their heavy taxation and open syncreticisms and the Fula also found allies in hausa Muslims and aggrieved peasants in Kano, led by Alkali Mallam Usman.
The Sultan in trying to assess the situation sent a small force led by Gainaku and instructed him to burn the Fula compounds and seize whatever he pleased from them.
The clan leader however denied any involvement and swore his innocence on a Quran but on his way back proceeded to seize the town of Gogel.
After consultation with his advisers, Alwali who still underestimated the severity of his situation then sent a military general, Barde Bakori with a force he deemed sufficient to disband the rebels but was also turned back.
He put together a delegation which included Arab and local scholars who were granted an audience by the rebels but publicly humiliated and turned back.
After rejecting his offer for peace, Alwali and his advisers decided to summon a faction of his troops led by the Sarkin Dawaki Ali and ordered them to capture the fula leaders and women but to slay everyone else.
The hausa horses were spooked by the pandemonium and in their retreat, the cavalry was confined to a narrow space due to trenches built by the Fula and were chased by a rain of arrows and spears.
Alwali decided to acquire the services of the Tuaregs of Adar led by Tambari Agumbil who had experience fighting against the Fula in Gobir.
Their attack sent the Fula to flight but they soon retaliated with a flurry of arrows aimed at the Hausa wing and Agumbil came to their aid, immediately losing his life in the process.
He reinforced his experienced soldiers and directed them to engage in minor assaults but to avoid open battles, hoping that attrition would wear the rebels out.
The Sultan then sent out raiders as a decoy to fool the rebels and in the resulting battle, the Fula lost many soldiers and were forced to retreat.
After Madaci and Jalli fell, the Sultan himself set out of Kano with a large force which included a heavy cavalry of seven hundred horsemen.
His army then occupied the town but were subject to constant harassment by a concentrated force of rebels using arrows and guerrilla tactics, trying to draw his cavalry out to open field.
It was here that Alwali learned of his betrayal by Ciroma Dan Mama and Sarkin Fulanin Danbarta who both reinforced Fula forces.
Alwali proceeded to Dan Yaya and while reinforcements from Bornu were impeded by a Fula blockade, he welcomed the Sultans of Katsina and Daura and their armies.
During this time, the Fula camp was running short of supplies and contemplated retreating to Gaya to instead aid Muhammad Bakatsine who had so far been unable to capture what would be perhaps the most important town in Kano.
They argued against this retreat believing it would reinvigorate the Sultan and his army's morale, instead deciding to roll the dice on one last major attack.
The Sultans of Katsina and Daura also fled home with what was left of their armies while the remaining soldiers fought a losing battle against the rampaging rebels.
During this time, Gaya, which was ruled by the lineage of Alwali's grandmother resisted the forces of Muhammad Bakatsine and remained loyal to the Sultan.
He ordered Sarkin Gaya Gujabu to launch an attack on Muhammad Bakatsine who had moved and assembled a force at Wudil.
After a few months, Dan Fodio appointed Suleiman Abahama, a modest young Imam as the first Fula Emir of Kano, subject to the Sokoto Caliphate.
Later on when the affairs of Kano became difficult to administer for the Fula kings, Ciroma Dan Mama helped acquaint them with the Hausa administrative system and practices.
The rest of the people of Kano were characterized by the pejorative term "Habe" by the new royal house and subject to grating conditions.
The latter, under Ahmadu Kuran Daga gathered a formidable arsenal of thousands of locally manufactured canons and muskets and was on the verge of taking the Kano capital after sending the Emirs forces into retreat when an illness and news of a French invasion sent him racing back home but not before collecting a great haul of booty from Kano.