Love-hate relationship at its best

There was a companion very dear to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that said, “Not one believer is brought into existence who hears about me without seeing me except that he loves me.”

And throughout history, this hadith has served to be true. It’s a true love-hate relationship. He is either dearly loved and appreciated or he is totally despised and attacked.

This companion was one of the best in memorization. He was a muhaddith, a faqi, a mufti and a mufassir all at the same time. He took the lead in narrating the most hadith – 5374 in total- and he was the son-in-law of the most knowledgeable tabi’ee, Sa’eed ibn AlMusayab.

This companion is none other than Abu Hurayra (nicknamed the ‘Father of the Kitten’).

Those who attack him might not know that he asked the prophet (pbuh) to ask Allah to make him and his mother beloved to His believing servants and that He make them beloved to them.

And so the prophet Muhammad supplicated, ” O Allâh! Make Your little servant here – meaning Abû Hurayra – and his mother beloved to Your believing servants, and make the believers beloved to the two of them.”

Some say that it would be impossible for someone to memorize that many ahadith in such a short span of time (3 years only) but they don’t realize that logically speaking, it is possible to memorize 3.5 hadith a day and on top of that, the prophet (pbuh) supplicated to help Abu Hurayra with his memory.

Let’s break it down:

• 5374 hadith in the 6 hadith collections
• Repeated hadith = 4074
• Hadith remaining= 1003
• Those ahadith heard by other companions also=almost 1000
• Hadith remaining that are only narrated by Abu Hurayra = less than 10

Less than 10! 

Logically speaking, he could not have made these hadith up!

The more you study about Abu Hurayra’s life, the more and more you appreciate how much Allah preserved His deen through him.