There is no record (not at least that I have seen) that says Abu Jahil was “Idol worshipper”.
Many of these big time leaders of Makkah were essentially businessmen, who made lots and lots of money by trading with everyone from Ibrahimi followers all the way to idol worshipper or pagans.
The problem with Abu Jahil was that he wanted to follow “Sharia” as established by his forefathers.
And Mohammed pbuh was by reciting Quran, \ challenging the “very notion” that Shariah /madhab followed in the name of Ibrahimi deen. He in fact declared that the rituals and Sharia followed by Kuffar has in fact become the victim of “interpretation” by self-appointed religious scholars.
If you want to understand, then read how Makkans even before Mohammed pbuh used to perform “Hujj” and follow “religiously” the edicts dealing with “sacred months” such as Rmadhan, Zelhujj etc. They used to fast and pray too
and Hujj and respect of sacred months was according to “Ibrahimi deen” and it will be truly sad and factually incorrect, that you call these practices as “idol worshipping”.
Do you even know that
-------- Abu Jahil was not making sajda in front of an idol. BECAUSE the same Abu Jahil was praying in Kaaba and thus making sujda to Kaaba.
(You have to show me some rawayat that says Abu Jahil did not or refused to make sajda towards Kaba.
The real problem was that
--------- Abu Jahil and his cronies had established a Sharia that was unjust and cruel to people, because it had come down to rituals and lost the true soul of Allah swt message. Very much similar to the leaders of TTP and other Taliban.
And Mohammed pbuh
— brought the true soul of Allah swt’ message back to the people
— and clearly rejected the extremists and abusers of religion.
This was not too different from what Hazrat Eesah pbuh brought to his Jewish followers. Remember Hazrat Eesah himself was jewish by birth, and other jews were not idol worshippers. The main problem pointed out by Hazrat Eesah was that Jewish religious scholars had hijacked the religion in the name of “Shariah”.
Similarly Quraish and other Makkans too had hijacked the Ibrahimi deen in the name of their sharia and Mohammed pbuh liberated us from that yoke (too bad in 21st century we have again put on the same old Sharia yoke).
Coming back to the topic!
if you read in detail, you will find that Abu Jahil was stuck with his Sharia and he was worried more about making money from the “religious business” instead of worrying about the true meaning of the words of Allah swt.
Thus he was hardly an “idol worshipper” in true sense,
In fact he was very much similar to many Muslim leaders / scholars of today who are abusing our beautiful religion in the name of Sharia and other worldly purposes.