 He formed his own "mashaykha" (sheikhdom) and encouraged Druze and Christian settlement in al-Qurayya.Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, he consolidated his role as the Druze military chieftain in his coreligionists’ entanglements with the Ottoman authorities and local Bedouin tribes.While at times there were hostilities with the Bedouin, Ismail forged friendly ties with the tribes and eventually established an alliance with them against the Ottomans.