The Tobacco Protest which swept across Iran and the broader Shi'ite world in 1891-92 was one of the earliest revolutionary movements in the history of the modern Middle East. In many ways comparable to the 1882 'Urabi Revolt in Egypt and the 1857 Mutiny in British India, the Tobacco Protest marks the beginnings of a national movement that eventually defined modern Iran. Based on several years of extensive research in French, American, British, Ottoman, and Iranian archives, this paper explains why the majority of Iranians supported and partook in this protest. The previous literature has explained why the merchants, the clerics, and the intellectuals participated in the Tobacco Movement. But this literature has not been able to explain why the urban poor, the working-class population, and women joined the protest. Disentangling and explicating the various factors that contributed to the making of the Tobacco Protest, this presentation argues that the single most important cause of popular mobilization was a set of ecological and environmental crises in Iran during and immediately before the protest (1890-92). This environmental stress, which was then combined with and compounded by a series of socioeconomic crises, put an enormous amount of strain on the majority of the population throughout much of this period. The environmental factors included widespread epidemics, cattle plagues, locust attacks, famine, earthquakes, and extreme shifts in temperature with devastating consequences for the rank and file of the population. The socioeconomic crises consisted of massive unemployment, declining wages, severe inflation, and declining standards of living. In such an environment, the poor and lower middle layers of society had recourse to an “economy of makeshifts” where they engaged in a variety of schemes and stratagems in order to bear the increasing pressure that was put on them. These activities which could also be described as “weapons of the weak” included theft, poaching, prostitution, tribal raids, and other forms of public crimes and violence. The massive popular participation in the Tobacco Movement should be understood in this environmental and socioeconomic context. It was the material grievances of the majority of the population that eventually brought them to join the ranks of merchants, clerics, and intellectuals and to participate in the Tobacco Protest.