Who is Abu Hurairah?

First of all, commiserations to Shias and Muslims across the world as we commemorated the Chelum of Imam Hussain (a.s.) this week. Every year we remember his sacrifice that saved Islam in its entirety, forget Shia Islam, all of Islam was under the threat of annihilation. Us Shias are continuously attacked for this commiseration, only two days ago, bomb blasts killed several Shia pilgrims in Kerbala and in Pakistan, suicide blasts targetted Shia processions in Lahore and Karachi, injuring and killing over 50 people. Everytime I hear such news I feel dejected and depressed. We are mourning the brutal killing of the grandson of the Holy Prophet and his companions and instead of joining in the mourning, Shias are killed instead. I pray for the day when Shias can remember the sacrifice of Imam Hussain (a.s.) in peace across the world and especially in so-called Muslim countries such as Iraq, Syria and Pakistan.

The tragedy at Kerbala saw the brutal killings of Imam Hussain (a.s.) and his 72 companions. These were true companions, worthy of the name. They sacrificed themselves for the sake of Islam and are rightly revered. Sunnis seem to have a different outlook when it comes to companions. They are the followers of the sunnah of the Prophet, the majority of which has been relayed by his companions. Companionship is a great virtue but it did not make the Prophet's companions infalliable, amongst them there were many loyal and honest men and women, but there were also those who were hypocrites, who commited sins and crimes under the cover of "companionship:" "...and among the townspeople of Al-Madinah (there are some who) persist in hypocrisy whom thou (O Muhammad) knowest not." (Surah 9, Verse 101) There were some hypocrites that even the Prophet did not know about.

Sunnis follow the sayings of the Prophet, the ahadith, as narrated by his companions sometimes regardless of the accuracy. For Shias, no book is 100% accept the Holy Quran, and perhaps Nahjul Balagha. Today I want to focus on a source of common Sunni misguidance, the companion Abu Hurairah, a key man behind several dodgy and fradulent ahadiths and a person Sunnis seem to follow blindly.

Abu Hurairah was born in Yemen in 603 AD, he was an orphan, with only a mother and no other relatives. His name at birth was Abd al-Shams (servant of the sun) but as a child he used to play with cats and became known as Abu Hurairah - Father of kittens. In 629 AD, he visited Madina with members of his tribe and then spent approximately three years with the Holy Prophet, until his death on 8th June 632 AD. Abu Hurairah died in 681 AD, aged 78, a year after the tragedy of Kerbala.

According to Sunni traditions, his great knowledge came from the Prophet himself: "The Prophet began to ladle knowledge with his hands and put it into the garment saying to Abu Hurayra: “Join it to your chest.” Abu Hurairah joined it to his chest and became infallible from forgetting; therefore he was the best of companions in keeping Sunna in mind and the most aware of it." Having become infallible from forgetting ahadith, he then went onto narrate thousands of sayings from the Prophet.

I want to look at a few examples of these apparent infallible ahadiths and ask whether they appear to make much sense, let alone whether the Holy Prophet could have narrated such sayings. To begin with, the Holy Prophet apparently narrated several ahadith about Prophet Moses. Various Sunni books quote Abu Hurairah talking about Prophet Moses:

• The Angel of Death used to come to people visibly, but when he came to Prophet Moses to take his life, Moses slapped him, gouged his eye, and sent him back to God one-eyed. After this accident, the angel of death went to people invisibly!
• Another wonder of Abu Hurairah's was the competition between Moses and the rock. Moses put his cloths on the rock to swim in the sea away from people. The rock ran away with Moses' cloths in order to force him to follow it nakedly as he was born in front of the Israelites in order to refute the rumor saying that Moses had a hernia. Moses ran after the rock shouting: “O, rock, my cloths. O rock, my cloths.” The rock stopped after ending its task. Moses began beating the rock with his stick severely until he made some scars in the rock.
• And another one about an ant that pinched prophet Moses. Moses ordered his followers to burn the village of the ants. Then Allah inspired to him: “Because of an ant that pinched you, you burnt a nation, which pleased Allah!”

• Another tradition, this time about Prophet Solomon who said: “I will go to bed with a hundred women tonight that every one of them will give birth to a boy, who will fight for the sake of Allah.” The angel asked him to say inshallah. He did not say. So no one of his wives gave birth to a baby save one, who gave birth to half a human being!

• Salim, the freed slave of Nasriyyin, said: I heard Abu Huraira as saying that he heard Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: O Allah, Muhammad is a human being. I lose my temper just as human beings lose temper, and I have held a covenant with Thee which Thou wouldst not break: For a believer whom I give any trouble or invoke curse or beat, make that an expiation (of his sins and a source of) his nearness to Thee on the Day of Resurrection. (Sahih Muslim, Book 32, Number 6293)

• Allah's Apostle said, "When the Adhan is pronounced Satan takes to his heels and passes wind with noise during his flight in order not to hear the Adhan. When the Adhan is completed he comes back and again takes to his heels when the Iqama is pronounced and after its completion he returns again till he whispers into the heart of the person (to divert his attention from his prayer) and makes him remember things which he does not recall to his mind before the prayer and that causes him to forget how much he has prayed." (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 11, Number 582)

That last ahadith is depressingly sad but amusing at the same time. Satan apparently passes wind, farts, in order not to hear the Adhan and Iqama. Can anyone honestly claim that the Holy Prophet would narrate such events? These are just some of the examples of narrations by Abu Hurairah, there are plenty more which are equally absurd.

Abu Hurairah has narrated over 5,000 ahadiths from the Holy Prophet all in the space of the three years he spent with the Holy Prophet. According to Muhammed Zubayr Siddiqui, in his book "Hadith Literature: It's Origin, Development, & Special Features," Abu Hurairah has narrated 5,374 ahadiths. In comparison, Bibi Aisha has narrated 2,210 ahadiths, Umar al-Khattab has narrated 537 ahadiths, Imam Ali (a.s.) 536 ahadiths and Abu Bakr 142 ahadiths. Abu Hurairah has narrated more from the Holy Prophet than the other four just mentioned, combined and only in the space of three years. Doesn't make any sense.

Beyond the above ahadiths mentioned above, there are then the ahadiths that seem to conrtadict what was happening at the time. For example, Abu Hurairah narrated the story of a conversation with the wife of Uthman, Ruqqaya and the Holy Prophet: He said: “Once I entered the house of Ruqayya, the Prophet's daughter and Uthman's wife. She had a comb in her hand. She said: “The Prophet left just a little ago. I combed his hair. He said to me: “How do you find Abu Abdullah (Uthman)?” I said: “he is good.” He said to me: “Grace him! He is the most similar to me, among my companions, in morals.” Imam al-Hakim, famous Sunni transmitter of ahadith, narrates this and says: “This tradition has a true series of narrators but untrue text, (the content is untrue) because Ruqayya had died in the third year of hijra during the battle of Badr, whereas Abu Hurairah came and became a Muslim after the battle of Khaybar (four years later).” So how did he have this conversation that he claims?

Another such ahadith is when Abu Hurairah boasted "We conquered Khaybar but we didn't gain gold or silver. We gained sheep, cows, camels, wares and houses." Abu Hurairah never participated in the Battle of Khaybar. He became a Muslim after that battle, and so once again, this narration doesn't make much sense.

If he was such a great companion and privy to so much information from the Holy Prophet, surely he would have been revered amongst the other companions. However, this was not the case. The second caliph, Umar al-Khattab, reportedly beat Abu Hurairah on more than one occasion: Ibn Sa'ad in Tabaqat, Volume IV, Ibn Hajar Asqalani in Isaba, and Ibn Abd-e-Rabbih in Iqdu'l-Farid, Volume I, write that the Caliph said: "'When I made you the governor of Bahrain, you had not even shoes on your feet, but now I have heard that you have purchased horses for 1,600 dinars. How did you acquire this wealth?' He replied, 'These were men's gifts which profit has multiplied much.' The Caliph's face grew red with anger, and he lashed him so violently that his back bled. Then he ordered the 10,000 dinars which Abu Huraira had collected in Bahrain be taken from him and deposited in the account of the Baitu'-Mal."

This was not the first time that Umar beat Abu Huraira. In Sahih Muslim it mentions that during the time of the Prophet, Umar Bin Khattab beat Abu Huraira so severely that the latter fell down on the ground. Allama Muttaqi Hindi in his Kanzu'l-Umma reports that Caliph Umar lashed him, rebuked him, and forbade him to narrate hadith from the Holy Prophet. Umar, asked why he did so, said: "Because you narrate hadith in (such) large numbers from the Holy Prophet, you are fit only for attributing lies to him. So you must stop narrating hadith from the Prophet; otherwise, I will send you back to your tribe in Yemen.”

Bibi Aisha was also someone who was not fond of Abu Huraira: Ibn Qutayba, in Ta'wil-e-Mukhtalifu'l-Hadith, and Hakim in Mustadrak, Volume III, and Dhahabi in Talkhisu'l-Mustadrak, reporting about the characteristics of Abu Huraira, all say that Bibi Aisha repeatedly contradicted him and said, "Abu Hurairah is a great liar who fabricates hadith and attributes them to the Holy Prophet." The famous book on hadith by Ibn Qutaiba Al-Dinory, records the story of Bibi Aisha telling Abu Hurairah; "You tell ahadiths about the prophet Muhammed that we never heard them from him" He answered "You (Aisha) were busy with your mirror and make up" She (Aisha) answered him; "It is you who were busy with your stomach and hunger. Your hunger kept you busy, you were running after the people in the alleyways, begging them for food, and they used to avoid you and get away from your way, and finally you would come back and pass out in front of my room and the people think you were crazy and step all over you."

Lastly, Imam Ali (a.s.) famously derided Abu Hurairah: Ibn Abi'l-Hadid, in his commentary on Nahju'l-Balagha, Volume I, reports from his teacher, Imam Abu Ja'far Asqalani, that Ali said, "Beware of the greatest liar among the people, Abu Huraira."

So when we reject the traditions and narrations of Abu Hurairah, we are rejecting the man who Umar, Aisha and Imam Ali (a.s.) rejected. This is not some Shia conspiracy or hate campaign. Yet, the tragedy today is that majority of Muslims accept his words, his traditions, his narrations, his nonsense. His legacy is long-lasting. Sunni Islam is built on the narrations of the companions, many of them on the false, unreliable, odd and offensive narrations of Abu Hurairah. There is nothing wrong with following the Sunnah of the Prophet but it depends on which Sunnah. Abu Hurairah was a fabricator of ahadith and I've hopefully shown how anything narrated by him cannot be trusted.

There are two types of Sunnah, there is the Sunnah defined by the likes of Abu Hurairah and others (Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik ibn-Tayimah) who came long after the Prophet and projected their own prejudices and theological inclinations. Then there is the household of the Holy Prophet as defined by Imam Ali (a.s.) and his children - the Ahlul Bayt. Before people dispute this claim of the household and the value of following them, learning from them, being inspired by them, I end this blog with the following quotes:

"I heard the Prophet saying, "There will be twelve Muslim rulers (who will rule all the Islamic world)." He then said a sentence which I did not hear. My father said, "All of them (those rulers) will be from Quraish." (Sahih Bukhari, Vol 9, Book 89, No. 331)

"It has been reported on the authority of Jabir b. Samura who said: I went with my father to the Messenger of Allah (may peeace be upon him) and I heard him say: This religion would continue to remain powerful and dominant until there have been twelve Caliphs. Then he added something which I couldn't catch on account of the noise of the people. I asked my father: What did he say? My father said: He has said that all of them will be from the Quraish" (Sahih Muslim, Book 20, Nos 4477, 4478, 4480, 4481, 4482, 4483)

Who am I to disagree?