Upon his return to Palestine in 1918, al-Hajj Muhammad supervised his family's land possessions. He became one of the prominent local grain traders of Palestine during the early years of the Mandate. Coinciding with this period, al-Hajj Muhammad became an ardent opponent of Zionism and British support for the movement. The 1920 Nebi Musa riots, unrest in 1923 and the 1929 Palestine riots all extended into Tulkarm and al-Hajj Muhammad was angered at the coercive manner in which the British authorities quelled the Palestinian Arab participants. His business eventually went bankrupt after the Mandate adopted new economic policies that saw the import of cheaper, foreign wheat at the expense of local produce. His disaffection with British economic policies partly motivated his participation in the Palestinian Arab revolt in 1936.