Why didn’t imam Ali (as) accept Abu sufyan’s offer in funding a war?

[zahralzu]

Why did imam Ali (عليه السلام) accuse Abu sufyan of igniting “fitnah” among the Muslims for his attempt to grant him victory? How is granting the imam victory considered “fitnah”? And how is it that Fatima (عليه السلام) said those who consider her cause a fitnah are hell dwellers in her fadak sermon? Yet imam ali (عليه السلام) considers overthrowing Abu bakr as “fitnah”? We know he was ordered to observe patience if he couldn’t find 40 soldiers, otherwise he would have fought, as he did in jamal/siffin, and here Abu sufyan offered them on a golden platter; why didn’t he take it? And so what if Abu sufyan is just a hypocrite with bad intentions, the prophet ((صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم)) accepted the jihad of hypocrites all the time and said god grants victory to this religion with the corrupt man (ن الله ليؤيد هذا الدين بالرجل الفاجر). If a non Muslim offers Islam victory; you take it any way you can get it...no?

[guest 2025]

When fighting Imam Ali would look into a person's progeny, and if there was one decent person in 7 generations he would spare him, if not he would kill him. I don't know what the specific reason was, but he is not juggling the same information we are because he was the second wisest man of all time and with that he had access to special information. 

And as we know a lot of Imam Ali's soldiers were bottom of the barrel idiots who became the khawarij. And Imam Hussein was let down by the very people who invited him to lead them. Imam Ali knows how the cookie would have crumbled if he took that offer. He decided to lose a finger instead of a hand.

[Abu_Zahra]

The purpose was not to fight over the caliphate. If the Imam (عليه السلام) did overthrow the sitting caliph then probably the masses would have followed him, in the same way they follow anyone who wields power. The same masses would then have followed whoever came along next. I fact history shows that the same muslimeen who passively ignored the nomination of Imam Ali (عليه السلام), eventually recognized him as their fourth caliph but also went on to recognize Muawiyah as a caliph after him.

The point is that the masses are more submissive to power than to revelation.

The objective was for muslimeen to follow the imam as a religious duty and not as a political convenience.

In fact the majority of our aimmah never had an official political role, yet their imamate is not dependent on this and each of them had their companions and followers albeit in small numbers.