Someone may query how it is possible for God to ordain an injunction that would make it obligatory to make a charitable gift before the conference when He knew since eternity that there would be an objection to it.
The response [to this is as follows]. In ordaining this injunction and then abrogating it, as God, Glorified be His name, did, it was actually a notification to the [people of the] community, by which God completed His argument against them. As a result of it, it became apparent for the community and for others that all the Companions pre‌ ferred wealth over a confidential conversation with the Prophet, and that no one ex‌ cept the Commander of the Faithful, Ali b. Abi Talib, acted upon this injunction. Abandoning the colloquy was not an act of disobedience against God, for the colloquy was not in itself obligatory. The obligatory aspect of the charitable gift was conditional upon the conference. Accordingly, if there were no colloquy, there would be no obli‌ gation to make the charitable offering. However, abandoning the colloquy indicates that those who did that gave more importance to wealth than to the conference.

The Wisdom of Legislating the Charitable Offering of the Colloquy

With the abrogation of the injunction after its enactment, the wisdom of its legisla‌ tion becomes obvious, and the favor of God for His creatures is unveiled. The indif‌ ference of Muslims to conversing with the Prophet became clear, and the status at‌ tained by the Commander of the Faithful [Ali] among them became known. This much is implied by the apparent sense of the revelation, which is further corrobo‌ rated by the traditions related to this effect. However, if the matter of voluntary offer‌ ings made before the conference were a mere formality to test the loyalty of the Muslims, as was the case in the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, then the subsequent verse would not abrogate the earlier one in the conventional sense of the term, but would simply stay the testing injunction-in other words, abrogation in the lexical sense.
In this connection, al-Razi reports that Abu Muslim was positive that the matter
was intended as a trial to distinguish between those who truly believed and those who remained hypocrites. Therefore, no abrogation in the technical sense is involved. Al-Razi, in agreement with this explanation, says, "This explanation is good; there is no objection to it."I٦٠
Al-Shaykh Sharaf al-Din relates:

Mul)ammad b. al-Abbas, in his commentary on the Quran, reports seventy traditions from Sunni and Shiite sources, which confirm that the only person who, out of all people, colloquized with the Prophet was the Commander of the Faithful, Ali.... I have copied from the book of our preceptor, Abu Jafar al-TUsi, the following tradi‌ tion, which, he says, is also mentioned in the compendium of a!-Tirmidhi, and the commentary of al-Thaalibi, who, in tum, has traced it back to Alqama al-Anmawi [and back] to Ali b. Abi Talib. [Imam Ali says]: "Through me, God lightened the burden of this Umma because God tested the Companions [of the Prophet]. They stayed away from conversing with the Prophet. The Prophet secluded himself in his home, conversing with no one except those who were willing to offer alms. I had in my pos-