His government was portrayed as weak; as the imam had to pay large stipends to various tribes in order to prevent them from plundering the land.
Parts of the lowlands, Tihamah, stood under the chief of Abu Arish, Sharif Hamud, who took an independent position and sometimes supported the Wahhabi ruler.
The following year, al-Mahdi Abdallah sent a firman to the British trading office in Mocha where he agreed to reduce import duties.
The authority of Al-Mahdi Abdallah in parts of Yemen was eroded by the appearance of a Georgian adventurer, Muhammad Agha, nicknamed Türkçe Bilmez (literally, "he does not know Turkish").
[6] He was a soldier serving under the Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali Pasha in Hijaz, where he mutinied and gathered discontented Ottoman units.
He concluded an alliance with a chief of Asir, Ali bin Mukhtar, whereby they were to support each other and share the revenues of the occupied territory.
With a British endorsement, Muhammad Ali sent an Egyptian force to Yemen in 1833 to deal with the chaotic situation, which was highly detrimental to trade.
Al-Mahdi Abdallah, unable to contain the turmoil, considered giving up his country, or what remained of it, to Muhammad Ali, but this was plainly rejected by his subjects.