Timacade was born in 1920 in the small town of Galooley, situated near
Gabiley in
British Somaliland, now (
Somalia). He hailed from the Jibril Abokor, a
Sa'ad Musa sub-division of the
Habr Awal Isaaq clan that inhabits the area around the
Gabiley region. In Galooley, Abdillahi Suldaan attended the local Qur’anic school. In his early teens he started composing and reciting poetry (initially, he could neither read nor write). His father and mother died when Abdillahi was very young. In 1936, Abdillahi Suldaan migrated to
Harar, where he worked in a restaurant owned by one of his uncles. After having spent some time in
Ethiopia and
Djibouti in the 1940s and 1950s, he returned to Gabiley and took part in the independence movements against the then ruling
British administration of the former
British Somaliland protectorate. Timacade was famous for his numerous poems, particularly his one euphoric
paean to liberty that marked the 26 June 1960 celebrations of
Somalia's independence from the British and pending reunification with
Somalia 5 days later to form the
Somali Republic. In the mid-1960s, he joined the Somali Democratic Union (SDU) and became its main poet, continuing his anticlanist themes. He later refused to vote in the 1967 elections and welcomed the October 1969 coup d'état. ==Last years and death==