A Shi'ite Encyclopedia (chapter 9)

Subject : Abu Huraira (part 3: His Mental and Physical Conditions)/2

1)- After Abu Huraira became muslim, he did not have anything. He used to ask people to recite a verse of Quran, not because he wanted to benefit the Quran. He wanted the person to feel religiously close and ask Abu Huraira for a dinner or lunch. This is well known phenomena as "Comibing stomach and religion". (Or combing religion with the money, stomach, power, ... or with trivial things)

2)- Even people did not believe that such person can narrate so many traditions. {No reference now: It has been told that Abu Huraira narrated 40,000 traditions during his life time. Dinving such number of traditions to three years of his companionship will result to 36 traditions per day (!!!).

A reference I gave a few weeks ago confirms that he, himself, has confessed that nobody among the sahabah has narrated as many traditions as he did. Knowing this fact that he is the second person in rate of narrating hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, we conclude that he must have narrated more traditions than is recorded in these two books.}

In one given hadith, he, himself, has confessed that people accused him of madness.

3)- Interesting point is that there is NO single hadith narrated by others as the merit of Abu Huraira. If you search the whole Bukhari and Muslim as the merit of Abu Huraira, whatever hadith you see about his companionship with the prophet, and his so called knowledge is narretd by him ALONE.

On the other hand, when you read the merit of Ali-Ibn-Abitaleeb (Salman, Umar, Zubair, ...), you can see that there were different narrators to say one hadith for Ali-Ibn-Abitaleeb (Or others). This does not happen with Abu Huraira at all. All the traditions like:

I was a good boy, I did this and that

were narrated ONLY by Abu Huraira. I am asking you to tell me if you accept the testimony of person in the court saying that he is a good boy.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The people used to say, "Abu Huraira narrates too many narrations." In fact I used to keep close to Allah's Apostle and was satisfied with what filled my stomach. I ate no leavened bread and dressed no decorated striped clothes, and never did a man or a woman serve me, and I often used to press my belly against gravel because of hunger, and I used to ask a man to recite a Quranic Verse to me although I knew it, so that he would take me to his home and feed me. And the most generous of all the people to the poor was Ja'far bin Abi Talib.

He used to take us to his home and offer us what was available therein. He would even offer us an empty folded leather container (of butter) which we would split and lick whatever was in it.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

I used to accompany Allah's Apostle to fill my stomach; and that was when I did not eat baked bread, nor wear silk. Neither a male nor a female slave used to serve me, and I used to bind stones over my belly and ask somebody to recite a Quranic Verse for me though I knew it, so that he might take me to his house and feed me. Ja'far bin Abi Talib was very kind to the poor, and he used to take us and feed us with what ever was available in his house, (and if nothing was available), he used to give us the empty (honey or butter) skin which we would tear and lick whatever was in it.

Narrated Muhammad:

We were with Abu Huraira while he was wearing two linen garments dyed with red clay. He cleaned his nose with his garment, saying, "Bravo! Bravo! Abu Huraira is cleaning his nose with linen! There came a time when I would fall senseless between the pulpit of Allah's Apostle and 'Aisha's dwelling whereupon a passerby would come and put his foot on my neck, considering me a mad man, but in fact, I had no madness, I suffered nothing but hunger."

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Once while I was in a state of fatigue (because of severe hunger), I met 'Umar bin al-Khattab, so I asked him to recite a verse from Allah's Book to me. He entered his house and interpreted it to me.

(Then I went out and) after walking for a short distance, I fell on my face because of fatigue and severe hunger. Suddenly I saw Allah's Apostle standing by my head. He said, "O Abu Huraira!" I replied, "Labbaik, O Allah's Apostle, and Sadaik!" Then he held me by the hand, and made me get up. Then he came to know what I was suffering from. He took me to his house, and ordered a big bowl of milk for me. I drank thereof and he said, "Drink more, O Abu Hirr!" So I drank again, whereupon he again said, "Drink more."

So I drank more till my belly became full and looked like a bowl. Afterwards I met 'Umar and mentioned to him what had happened to me, and said to him, "Somebody, who had more right than you, O 'Umar, took over the case. By Allah, I asked you to recite a Verse to me while I knew it better than you." On that Umar said to me, "By Allah, if I admitted and entertained you, it would have been dearer to me than having nice red camels.

The translation of the meaning of Sahih al-Bukhari Arabic-English Dr. Mohammad Muhsin Khan Islamic University, Medina al-Munawwara

Subject: Re: Abu Huraira (Part 3: His mental and physical conditions)

Djamel has posted an attack on the posting about Abu Huraira that bears to be responded to . Djamel. If someone has SUPERHUMAN abilities all of a sudden would you not be suspicious. We do not hear that Abu Huraira was a man with a SUPER memory before he met the Prophet. Suddenly, he comes to Hazrat Muhammad (SAAS), spenmds three years with him and can remember EVERYTHING by some MAGICAL powers.

It has nothing to do with someone trying to make people shia or sunni by questioning the baloney that Abu Huraira was spewing. This man was using his BRIEF time with the prphet (SAAS) for PERSONAL gain and to continue to GAIN INFLUENCE every time something came up that required an opinion HE was the one who came up with some HADEES he SUDDENLY FUILLY REMEMEBRED.

In particular he HATED Aisha and it is a matter of record that he made up HADEETH that Aisha DIRECTLY contradicted.

This man's super memory came into existence after the Prophet's death when suddenly from a PC XT type brain his mind became like a 486/33MHz with a CD-ROM built in with the entire encyclopaedia of Hadeeth. ANY subject, ANY time, he would recall something that no one lese knew or had heard before. Wow!

The likelihood of this man doing it for personal gain, influence, and political/social motivation is very high and we should be wary of that instead of questioning the motive of someone who raised these points.

Subject: Re: Abou Huraira

Aysha (respected mother of believers) narrated more than Abu Huraira in Sahih Bukhari. Ibn Umar narrated the same as Abu Huraira in Bukhari. I gave all these numbers in an article titled as Statistical numbers.

I did not ask why Ayesha narrated so many hadith from the prohet. I did not ask why Ibn-Umar narrated so many hadith, or Ibn-Abbas, or others. I asked:

How a person who was with the prophet less than three years has narrated so many traditions?

The rest is ignored since you misunderstood the original question from the base.

Abu Huraira only narrated 5,374 hadiths.

Let us assume that Abu Huraira was with the prophet full three years.

5,374/3 = 1791.33 traditions per year, 1791.33/(365-11)= 5.06 traditions per day.

You tell me how? How a man did this every day? Why he was so dedicated while much more better people such as Umar, his son, Ibn Abbas and Abu Bakr did not accomplish such? (with the same density as Abu Huraira, 5 hadiths per day?)

Not to mention that Abu Huraira narrated more than any other sahabah, based on his testimony. Some say that he narrated around 40,000 traditions. Even people who were living around him on that time were surprised by this man and his narrations (based on the testimony of Abu Huraira himself.)

Another part is why such man has narrated similar traditions to old testement? (parts which were clearly rejected by islamic theology?)