The Northern Somali Sultanate Source: Speke's Journal: During Lieutenant Speke's first visit to the Sultan, who received him squatting on the ground outside the house in which he lodged, with his guards about him, the dignitary showed great trepidation, but returned salams with politeness. He is described as a fine-looking man, between forty-eight and fifty years of age; he was dressed in a black tobe and had a turban, and appeared unarmed. Source Rechards Journal: Of course no mortal man was like their Gerad Mahamud Ali. In leading them to war he was like the English French, (12) and in settling disputes he required no writing office, but, sitting on the woolsack, he listened to the narration of prosecution and defence with his head buried in his hands, and never uttering a word until the trial was over, when he gave his final decision in one word only, ay or nay, without comment of any sort. In confirmation of their statements, they gave the description of a recent trial, when a boy was accused of having attempted to steal some rice from a granary; the lad had put his hand through a chink in the door of it, and had succeeded in getting one finger, up to the second joint, in the grain; this, during the trial, he frankly acknowledged having done, and the sultan appointed that much of his finger exactly to be cut off, and no more--punishing the deed exactly according to its deserts. Gerad Mohamud Ali was the Great Father of Gerad Aul or Cawl and the Grandfather of Sultan Mohamoud Alishire

Gerad Mohamud Ali (1797–1858 ) ********** Sultanate Source: Speke's Journal: During Lieutenant Speke's first visit to the Sultan, who received him squatting on the ground outside the house in which he lodged, with his guards about him, the dignitary showed great trepidation, but returned salams with politeness. He is described as a fine-looking man, between forty-eight and fifty years of age; he was dressed in a black tobe and had a turban, and appeared unarmed. Source Rechards Journal: Of course no mortal man was like their Gerad Mahamud Ali. In leading them to war he was like the English French, (12) and in settling disputes he required no writing office, but, sitting on the woolsack, he listened to the narration of prosecution and defence with his head buried in his hands, and never uttering a word until the trial was over, when he gave his final decision in one word only, ay or nay, without comment of any sort. In confirmation of their statements, they gave the description of a recent trial, when a boy was accused of having attempted to steal some rice from a granary; the lad had put his hand through a chink in the door of it, and had succeeded in getting one finger, up to the second joint, in the grain; this, during the trial, he frankly acknowledged having done, and the sultan appointed that much of his finger exactly to be cut off, and no more--punishing the deed exactly according to its deserts. Gerad Mohamud Ali was the Great Father of Gerad Aul or Cawl and the Grandfather of Sultan Mohamoud Alishire