Imām Ali's Loneliness in His Own Words
We said earlier that history is a truthful witness to the claim that the short period of Imām Ali’s (a.s.) government has been the most sublime manifestation of a rule based on human values. His ruling method was not only attractive to those committed to Islamic human values, but those uncommitted to such values were also attracted by it, and they sometimes did not fail to admit its magnificence and perfection. Therefore, the reasons for the people’s distance from the government of Imām Ali (a.s.) is not to be sought in the inconsistency of his method, but there are other reasons and causes to be delved into, that will be mentioned in the following pages.
Imām Ali (a.s.) himself explicitly and sufficiently has talked about the reason for the withdrawal of people from him and turning their backs on his government. In his sermons and responses to queries, he expressed the reasons for their initial welcome and then their eventual distancing from him. Here is a review of the background, reasons and causes of the people’s withdrawal and Imām Ali’s (a.s.) loneliness:
1. Contradictory Demands
The first reason for the people’s distance from Imām Ali (a.s.) was the fundamental difference between two types of views about government. In reality, these two approaches had fundamental conflict between each other in their motivations and purposes.
A great majority of the participants in the uprising against `Uthmān, especially a number of the key players of that movement such as Talha and Zubair, did not intend to bring the community back to the Prophetic conduct (sira) and tradition (sunna). They did not wield their swords, in order to maintain the sovereignty of genuine Islamic values. Party monopolization tendencies and tribal decision-making of the Umayyads in government which was formed through `Uthmān’s rule had exhausted them. For them, overthrowing `Uthmān and their pledge of allegiance to Ali (a.s.) were in fact aimed at solving this problem, although in their slogans they stated otherwise.