Abu Hurayrah

ProfileAbu Hurayrah

Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) was of the tribe of Daws in Yemen, which was known for its wildness. When Tufayl ibn Amr came to the Prophet ﷺ to say that Daws had refused and to ask him to pray against them, the Prophet ﷺ prayed that Allah guide Daws (Sahih al-Bukhari), and the young orphan who later came with them became the one through whom most of what we know of the Prophet's ﷺ words reached the world. According to the early biographies, he was a shepherd, and his name before Islam was Abd Shams or something similar, and the Prophet ﷺ gave him a name of Abd ar-Rahman, though the sources differ. He is known by the nickname Abu Hurayrah, the father of the kitten, because he used to carry a kitten in his sleeve. The Prophet ﷺ also called him Abu Hirr, which was affectionate (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he was a handsome man of bronze skin and a reddish beard, cheerful and humorous, and fond of children.

According to the early biographies, he came to Madinah as an emigrant on the day the Prophet ﷺ left for Khaybar, and prayed the dawn prayer behind the man the Prophet ﷺ had left in charge there. He had only one servant, who ran away on the way, so he arrived with his old blind mother, who did not understand why they had moved. He settled her at Dhu al-Hulayfah, near Madinah, and attached himself to the Prophet ﷺ for the four years he was to have with him.

His mother was not a Muslim. He told that he used to invite her to Islam and she refused, and one day she said something about the Prophet ﷺ that he hated. He went to the Prophet ﷺ in tears, and the Prophet ﷺ prayed that Allah guide the mother of Abu Hurayrah. When he came back, the door was shut and he heard water running, and she told him to wait. She came out dressed and covered, and said the testimony of faith. He went back to the Prophet ﷺ in tears of joy and asked him to pray that Allah make him and his mother beloved to the believers, and the Prophet ﷺ prayed for it. Abu Hurayrah said that no believer who heard of him or saw him did not love him (Sahih Muslim). According to the early biographies, every day he would stand at her door when he left and when he came back and greet her, praying for her as she had raised him, and she would answer with a prayer for him. According to the early biographies, he did not go on Hajj and did not marry until she died. He is the narrator of the hadith in which a man asks the Prophet ﷺ who has the most right to his good company, and is told three times that it is his mother, and then his father (Sahih al-Bukhari).

He was one of the people of the Suffah, the poor men who slept in the Prophet's ﷺ mosque. He told how he stayed close to the Prophet ﷺ for the sake of a full stomach, while the Muhajirun were busy with trade and the Ansar with their land, and how he often pressed his belly against the ground, and tied a stone around it, and asked men to recite a verse to him that he knew already so that they would take him home and feed him. The most generous of the people to the poor, he said, was Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, who would take them home and give them even an empty skin that had held butter, which they would split and lick (Sahih al-Bukhari). One day he sat on the road where the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions passed. Abu Bakr passed, and he asked him about a verse so that he would see his hunger, and he did not. Umar passed, and the same. Then the Prophet ﷺ passed, smiled, knowing what was in his face and heart, and said "Abu Hirr" and told him to follow. In the house they found a bowl of milk that someone had given, and the Prophet ﷺ told him to call the people of the Suffah. Abu Hurayrah thought that there would be nothing left for him, but he obeyed. They all drank in turn, and finally the Prophet ﷺ said that only the two of them were left. He told him to drink, and drink again, until he said that he could not drink any more. Then the Prophet ﷺ took the bowl, praised Allah, and drank the rest (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, Umar later told him that if he had noticed and fed him that day, it would have been dearer to him than a valley of red camels.

The Prophet ﷺ put him in charge of guarding the zakat of Ramadan. A man came in the night and took handfuls of the food, and said that he was needy and had many dependents, so Abu Hurayrah let him go. In the morning the Prophet ﷺ asked what had become of his prisoner, and told him that the man had lied and would come back. The same happened twice more, and the third night the man said that if Abu Hurayrah recited the verse of the Throne before sleeping, a guard from Allah would stay with him and Satan would not come near him until morning. The Prophet ﷺ said that the man had told the truth, though he was a liar, and that he had been Satan (Sahih al-Bukhari).

He was asked how he had narrated so much in only a few years. He answered that he stayed close to the Prophet ﷺ, and that he had said to the Prophet ﷺ that he heard much and forgot it. The Prophet ﷺ told him to spread his cloak, and moved his hands as if pouring something into it, and told him to wrap it round himself, and after that he never forgot anything (Sahih al-Bukhari). He said that no one among the Companions had narrated more than him except Abdullah ibn Amr, who used to write them down (Sahih al-Bukhari), and that he had learnt two kinds of knowledge from the Prophet ﷺ, one of which he had spread, and that if he spread the other, his throat would be cut (Sahih al-Bukhari). According to the early biographies, he was with Zayd ibn Thabit and a friend one day, in the mosque, and each prayed to Allah as the Prophet ﷺ said "Ameen", and Abu Hurayrah prayed for knowledge that would not be forgotten, and the Prophet ﷺ said ameen, and told the others that he had beaten them to it. According to the early biographies, Marwan, the governor of Madinah, once had a scribe sit behind a curtain and write down everything that Abu Hurayrah narrated, and a year later asked him to narrate again, and he did not miss a thing. According to the early biographies, the Companions, among them Talhah and Ibn Umar, trusted what he narrated, since he had been with the Prophet ﷺ at times they had not, and his circle in the mosque of the Prophet ﷺ was the largest in Madinah.

He told that his friend advised him to fast three days of every month, to pray two rak'ahs of Duha, and to pray witr before sleeping (Sahih al-Bukhari). He told that the Prophet ﷺ passed a mountain called Jumdan on the road to Makkah and said that the single ones had gone ahead, and that they were the men and women who remember Allah much (Sahih Muslim). A report of five pieces of advice that the Prophet ﷺ gave him one by one on his fingers, to avoid what is forbidden, to be content with his share, to be good to his neighbour, to love for others what he loves for himself, and not to laugh too much, is graded da'if (Jami at-Tirmidhi) and is only mentioned here. According to the early biographies, he would say tasbih twelve thousand times a day.

According to the early biographies, when his mother died, he married Busrah bint Ghazwan, the sister of Utbah ibn Ghazwan, a wealthy woman whose sheep he had tended, and he used to thank Allah that He had changed his state from that to this. According to the early biographies, he and his wife and daughter or servant divided the night into thirds, and each prayed one third, then woke the next. Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, the great scholar of the next generation, married his daughter. According to the early biographies, he led the funeral prayers of Aishah and Umm Salamah, and of Hafsah when Ibn Umar was alive and preferred him to do it, and he fought at Yamamah and Yarmuk. Umar made him governor of Bahrain. When Umar came and found that he had put aside some money, Umar asked where it came from, and Abu Hurayrah said it came from his thrift, but gave all of it to the treasury when Umar told him to give at least half. According to the early biographies, when Umar later wished to appoint him again, he refused, and said that he feared being dishonoured, having his money taken or being flogged, or speaking without knowledge or judging without gentleness. According to the early biographies, he was later Marwan's deputy over Madinah, and carried firewood on his own back through the market, saying that the governor was coming, and he played hide-and-seek with the children of Madinah. During the troubles, he withdrew from taking sides. According to the early biographies, he told his visitors on his deathbed to be quick with his bier, for if he was righteous, they would be sending him toward good. The Prophet ﷺ had said to hurry with the dead (Sahih al-Bukhari).

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