Ali was the grandson of Janbulad ibn Qasim al-Kurdi (d. 1572), the "sanjak-bey" (district governor) of Kilis, part of Aleppo Eyalet. Janbulad suppressed brigandage in the district and took part in the 1571 Ottoman conquest of Cyprus during the war with Venice (1570–1573). He belonged to a family of Kurdish tribal chieftains based in the Kurd-Dagh (Kurd Mountains) west of Kilis and Aleppo. The family name Janbulad translates from Kurdish as "soul of steel". Janbulad and his family were rewarded for their military achievements with the hereditary governorships of the sanjaks of Kilis and Ma'arra. According to the historian William Griswold, the hereditary appointments to the militarily strategic and lucrative posts were "generous and represented considerable respect" by the Sublime Porte (imperial Ottoman government in Constantinople) for Janbulad. He built at least one Sunni Muslim mosque in Kilis in 1562 before his governorship, and he or one of his family members built a bathhouse in the city.