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Abū Hurayra ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣakhr al-Dawsī al-Zahrānī (; –679), commonly known as Abū Hurayra (; ), was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and considered the Hadith. Born in al-Jabur, Arabia to the Banu Daws clan of the Zahran tribe tribe, he was among the first people to convert to Islam, and later became a member of the Suffah after the hijrah.
Under Muhammad, Hurayra was sent as a muezzin to al-Ala al-Hadhrami in Bahrain. During the reign of the Rashidun caliph Umar (r. 634-644), he briefly served as a governor of Bahrain. After being accused of corruption by Umar, he left the governorship and returned to Medina.
Acknowledged by Sunni Islam scholars for his notable eidetic memory, he memorized over 5,000 hadiths, which later produced more than 500,000 isnad, making him an example followed by Sunni Hadith studies today. The four major Sunni madhahib have all used hadith narrated by Hurayra in major jurisprudential decisions. However, some Shia Islam scholars, have not regarded Hurayra as ureliable.
Abu Hurairah was father-in-law of the prominent tabi'
In his Kitab al-Iman, a book on Aqidah, Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) uses hadith narrations from Abu Hurairah to study Tawhid. Ibn Kathir uses Abu Hurairah's narrations in Al-Nihāyah fī al-Fitan wa al-Malaḥim, a work on Islamic eschatology. References to Abu Hurairah's narrations can be found in Al-Tabari's Tafsir al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir's Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Al-Mahalli and al-Suyuti's collaborative Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and Al-Qurtubi's Tafsir al-Qurtubi, all of which are works of tafsīr, or Quranic exegesis. They also refer to Abu Hurairah's Ijtihad and the resulting fatāwā as their resources.
Abu Hurairah was among the few companions of Muhammad who issued jurisprudential rulings or fatāwā ( fatwa), and he was personally requested by his contemporary companion Ibn Abbas to do so. As the Sunni madhahib ( madhhab, schools of jurisprudence) were structurally based on the rulings or narrations from companions of Muhammad, the ruling jurisprudence for the four main Sunni madhahib heavily relied on Abu Hurairah's fatāwā and his numerous narrations. Taqi al-Din al-Subki compiled the fatāwā of Abu Hurairah in his book, Fatawa Abu Hurairah. Abu Hurairah was one of the six prominent companions of Muhammad involved in jurisprudential rulings during the Rashidun era, the others being Ali, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Abu Darda, Saʽid al-Khudri, and Abu Shafiah. Abd al-Rahman Jaziri, a professor at Al-Azhar University, has concluded that on certain issues, the four madhahib reached Ijma (consensus) on Abu Hurairah's ruling.
The four major Sunni Islam madhahib, have all used hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah in major jurisprudential decisions. Muwatta Imam Malik, the hadith collection of the founder of the Maliki madhhab, Malik ibn Anas, contains various hadiths narrated by Abu Hurairah wherein they form the basis for jurisprudential rulings. Bulugh al-Maram, a hadith collection by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani pertaining to the Shafi'i madhhab also contains many hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah. Al-Nawawi's Al-Arba'ūn an-Nawawiyyah also contain narrations from Abu Hurairah. According to Muhammad ibn al-Uthaymeen in his commentary of Al-Nawawi's Riyāḍ as-Ṣaliḥīn, Abu Hurairah's ijtihad formed the basis for Al-Nawawi's rulings of wudu.
Bilal Philips, a Salafi preacher from Canada who was known for his preaching activity to three thousand US army veteran of the first Gulf War after the successful victory of Saudi-US coalition, also listed several quotations from Abu Hurairah in his earlier work, Salvation Through of Repentance , regarding various matters of Islamic teaching, included Qadr Night and Friday prayers.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Religious Affairs (Indonesia) and Indonesian Ulema Council has issued a ruling for the cleansing protocol to manage COVID-19 pandemic Muslim victims dead bodies based on the fatwa verdict of Abu Hurairah when managing dead bodies of plague victims. The same council worked together with Ministry of Health to issue joint formal decrees of the obligation for Hajj pilgrims to undergo Meningitis vaccination, on the basis of their ruling from Hadith of Abu Hurairah.
Saleh Al-Fawzan, member of Council of Senior Scholars (Saudi Arabia) and Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta and one of the most senior scholar has listed most of his thoughts regarding Fiqh jurisprudence based on hadiths narrated by Abu Hurairah.
Muhammad Sa'id Mursi recorded around 800 companions of Muhammad and tabi'un who learnt hadith from Abu Hurairah. According to the records from Ibn Hajar and ad-Dhahabi, Abu Hurairah fellow Sahabah and Tabi'un who narrated hadiths from him were Abd Allah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ibn Abbas, Jabir ibn Abd Allah, Anas ibn Malik, Said ibn al-Musayyib, Urwah ibn Zubayr, Amr ibn Dinar, Ibn Sirin, Ata ibn Abi Rabah, Isa ibn Talha al-Taymi, Hammam ibn Munabbih, Hasan al-Basri, Tawus ibn Kaysan, Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, among others.
According to Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ali ibn al-Madini (d. 849) considered the most authentic chain that begin with Abu Hurairah as being Abu Hurairah → Ibn Sirin → Ayyub al-Sakhtiani → Hammad ibn Zaid.
According to Ahmad Muhammad Shakir (d. 1958), a hadith scholar from Al-Azhar University, the most authentic asnād that came from Abu Hurayrah were:
According to Yasin Jibouri, several Shia scholars such as Ja'far al-Iskafi regarded Abu Hurayra as telling lies. Same goes with Abu Rayyah, independent writer from Egypt who quoted medieval Shia source in his report regarding Abu Hurairah. Certain Shia writers are known for doubting his authority as a narrator. As Abdullah Saeed points out the writing from Abu Rayyah that Caliph Umar bin Khattab is recorded to repeatedly threaten Abu Hurayrah, noted at the time as a blatant self-promoter, with serious consequences due to his frequent misquote of the Prophet's words.
However, researchers have found that the Sunni scholarly community unanimously regarded Abu Hurairah as trustworthy both classical medieval and modern contemporaries, and they thought the allegation of the hadith falsification by Abu Hurairah were coming solely from Shia traditions, which not found in Kutub al-Sittah and other major Hadith works, as medieval scholars such as Dhahabi said that the criticism towards Abu Hurairah are not accepted even during the early times of Islam for several reasons, including because those who criticise Abu Hurairah themselves are known as Mudallis (defected or untrustworthy narrators) according to Jarh wa Ta'dil (biographical evaluation study) and Asbab wurud (chronological study of Hadith). Which generally agreed by later era counterparts, which further adds that Jarh wa Ta'dil rulings only valid to evaluate Tabi'un or generations above them, while Sahabah generation are free and exempt from Jarh wa Ta'dil and accepted without exception, as long they are confirmed and identified by chroniclers as Sahabah.
Safia Aoude and Ali al-Tamimi also highlighted, the narration of Umar threatening Abu Hurairaha, which quoted by Abdullah Saeed, were also came solely from a writer which influenced by Abu Rayyah, Particularly from anonymous writer who has pen name "O. Hashem" who write his criticism towards Abu Hurairah in his book, Saqifah. Several Sunni thinkers and scholars such as has been Mustafa al-Siba'i, Shuaib Al Arna'ut, along with director of Maktabah al-Haram al-Makki ash-Shariff(Library of the Great Mosque of Mecca) Abdur-Rahman al-Mu'allimee al-Yamani, has criticized the sources which O. Hashem quoted only using falsified and inauthentic hadith according to standard of Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, and Al-Dhahabi criterion of biography evaluation, while also questioning O. Hashim scholarly credibility as they though O. Hashem were driven by Shiite biased view on his critics. While Muhammad ibn al-Uthaymeen dismissing such criticism towards Abu Hurairah which came from Shia traditions as he said they are simply "a collection of error traditions".
According to Burhanuddin from Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs, the scholars observation from Siba'i, Abdul Mun'im Shalih Al-'Ali, Dhiya'urrahman Al A'Dzamy, Muhammad Abu Syahbah, Shalahuddin Maqbul Ahmad, and Abdullah ibn Abdil Aziz An-Nashir, has found out the reason Abu Rayyah, has such inorganized method in his writing were because the background of Abu Rayyah though not came from proper academic learning, instead he was just influenced by the writings of Goldziher.
Badri Khairuman from Kalijaga Islamic University, on the other side, has pointed out that Abu Rayyah critic towards Abu Hurairah were flawed according to the main principles of Biographical evaluation traditions and accusing Abu Rayyah relying on single source of 12th AD twelver Shia scholar, Allamah Al-Hilli. Furthermore, the case of accusation of Abu Hurairah were nullified according to Badri, as Badri reasons it is impossible if Umar does not trust Abu Hurairah, while on the fact Umar were nominating Abu Hurairah twice as governor of Bahrayn and entrusting him to produce Fatwa in eastern Arabia, while on the last years of Umar, the caliph appoint Abu Hurairah as judge in Medina, the citadel of caliphate. Badri concludes his thesis that the phenomena of Abu Rayyah writing came from the elementary and very small Abu Rayyah knowledge regarding the structural Hadith studies with proper methodology. While scholar, Abdur-Rahman al-Mu'allimee al-Yamani gave short remarks that Abu Rayyah assessment towards Abu Hurairah came from biased view, not proper methodology of Hadith study.
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