It was triggered by an anti-slavery edict that contradicted religious law, but also a political conflict between Ottoman rule and the local sharifs of Mecca.
[3] Abdulmuttalib gathered support by asking the notables of Jeddah to write a letter of 1 April 1855 to the sharif and ulema of Mecca, where they condemned the Firman as concession to Europeans, since it authorized the Ottoman governors to ban slave trade, permitted non-Muslims to erect edifices in the Arab Peninsula, allow non-Muslim men to marry Muslim women and prohibited the interference in women's dress, and the notables of Jeddah petitioned the emir to petition the Sultan.
[5] Governor Kamil Pasha ordered the public reading of the firman in the province, resulting in the ulema of condemning it as contrary to sharia.
[6] However, open rebellion broke out with rioting in Mecca and Jeddah and attacks on houses belonging to French and British protegees.
[8] Abdulmuttalib Efendi refused to accept the deposition and gathered support among the desert Arab bedouin chiefs (urban), resulting in an urban army of 600-700 soldiers attacking the Ottoman troops in Bahre, and then again with a force of 2000 soldiers; both times without success, but with riots in Mecca and Jeddah.