Saturday, January 17, 2009

Abu Huraira

Who was Abu Huraira?

More information can be gotten from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Hurairah

He was a poor man who filled his stomach with Mohammad's (may peace be upon him) words. Yet, most early Muslims thought he was an idiot who wasted time narrating narrations, and thought he did nothing that was productive:

Volume 3, Book 39, Number 540:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
The people say that Abu Huraira narrates too many narrations. In fact Allah knows whether I say the truth or not. They also ask, "Why do the emigrants and the Ansar not narrate as he does?" In fact, my emigrant brethren were busy trading in the markets, and my Ansar brethren were busy with their properties. I was a poor man keeping the company of Allah's Apostle and was satisfied with what filled my stomach. So, I used to be present while they (i.e. the emigrants and the Ansar) were absent, and I used to remember while they forgot (the Hadith). One day the Prophet said, "Whoever spreads his sheet till I finish this statement of mine and then gathers it on his chest, will never forget anything of my statement." So, I spread my covering sheet which was the only garment I had, till the Prophet finished his statement and then I gathered it over my chest. By Him Who had sent him (i.e. Allah's Apostle) with the truth, since then I did not forget even a single word of that statement of his, until this day of mine. By Allah, but for two verses in Allah's Book, I would never have related any narration (from the Prophet). (These two verses are): "Verily! Those who conceal the clear signs and the guidance which we have sent down .....(up to) the Merciful.' (2.159-160)

In fact, the first Muslims also thought he was something much more than an idiot, but a guinea pig.

Volume 5, Book 59, Number 545:
Narrated Said:
Aban bin Said came to the Prophet and greeted him. Abu Huraira said, "O Allah's Apostle! This (Aban) is the murderer of the Ibn Qauqal." (On hearing that), Aban said to Abu Huraira, "How strange your saying is! You, a guinea pig, descending from Qadum Dan, blaming me for (killing) a person whom Allah favored (with martyrdom) with my hand, and whom He forbade to degrade me with his hand.'

So what great hadiths did Abu Huraira provide us with?

1) That she-monkeys were capable of sexual intercourse and that Abu Huraira used to go and stone them; http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/04/she-monkeys-were-capable-of-illegal.html
2) Got easily fooled by Satan, who likd to recite Quran surahs: http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/09/satan-reciting-quran-surahs.html
3) Discussed a man converting to Islam after a wolf hustled him out of one of his sheep http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/06/guy-converts-to-islam-after-wolf-ate_23.html
4) Prophet Mohammad said that Animal Dung is the food of Jinn http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/05/animal-dung-is-food-of-jinns.html
5) And ofcourse, the story about Moses (Musa) beating the crap out of a stone which stole its clothes. http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/04/moses-once-execessively-beat-stone.html

These hadiths are just the tip of the iceberg of silliness. We know that Abu Huraira was not well liked because he would go around following Mohammad (may peace be upon him) and narrating his stories. The first Muslims thought Huraira was an unprodutive fool.

1) Was Abu Huraira productive in bringing forth these hadiths, and were the first Muslims right about Abu Huraira?

2) If Abu Huraira was not productive, did he become unproductive because he started to listen to the words of Prohet Mohammad (may peace be upon him) too much?
a) Have Muslim countries taken queue from Abu Huraira, becoming unproductive (comparison between India and Pakistan: http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/06/mohammad-forbid-muslims-to-play-chess.html)

3) Why are many of Abu Huraira's hadiths so nonsensical?
a) Did Islam make him blind to common sense and logic?
b) Or was he that way before?
i) If he was that way before, how can the most trusted hadith scholars trust him for a very significant amount of hadiths and traditions giving rise to the Sunna?
ii) Did Islam make hadith writers like Bukhari and Muslim blind to common sense and logic?
iii) Or did the hadith writers use Abu Huraira as a tool for making fun of Prophet Mohammad (may peace be upon him), since it is apparent none of the first Muslims respected Abu Huraira much, in a subverted way to show that the hadith writers did not believe Mohammad (may peace be upon him) was a Prophet? http://muslimhadith.blogspot.com/2008/12/2008-year-in-review.html

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stop degrading Islam and its followers!

hhashmo said...

I am not degrading Muslims. I have the upmost respect for Muslims.

I am sorry, the doctrine of Islam is separate from Muslims

Anonymous said...

it is good you birng this up. muslims have ignored the need to re examin hadith literature for too long

Anonymous said...

Salaam and may Allah guide us to the Truth. Umar here. It's funny how discussions about Abu Hurairah almost always end up duscussing the validity of the whole hadith. We today are no better than the ones that we accuse of short-sightedness in our past, like the ones who venerated the hadith collections and started creating Shariah, by definition a "Divine" law, and basing it's details on a document thats entirely man-made, regardless of its claims of eventual association with the Prophet (SAW). We forget that Allah protects the Quran so we can continually critique it to gain wisdom. Without the ability to critique it, you can never really prove the accuracy of something. So the promise of protection against corruption remains one of the most amazing miracles of the Quran, try as you may, you cannot fault it, but the point here is that Allah welcomes challenge against this promise because it serves as a continuous proof of the accuracy and the divinity of the Quran. Now lets ask ourselves if we can afford the same standards to our hadith, regardless of how many or how few truths remain in it? The Quran talks of facts verifiable, which proves its accuracy, and this accuracy then can be applied to prove as truths the facts in the Quran which cannot be verified, like historical facts of past Prophets. This is only possible through firstly the verifiability of universal truths and prophecies, second the unbroken chain of Quran Hifz and recital as Gods promise of protection, and finally the fact that the Quran is complete, from first revelation to the last. Any other belief will throw the very foundations of all Islamic beliefs out the window. The Hadith as a source of Sunnah can only be enforced as a canonical document equal or almost equal in juristic stature if it can hold its own like the Quran can. If we have to concede that the Hadith is not a complete biography of the Prophet (SAW) and niether does it for certain contain the exact words of all the words spoken by the Prophet (SAW), then how can it face accusations of corruptions a thousand years from now? The Quran will still be valid and will still be verifiable, but the hadith, if destroyed today, may be brought back by the muhaddiths among us, but we will lose forever (as we've already lost) the basis of hadith which are the narrations and chains and all the other criteria which could only be examined at a certain point in our history. Anyone attempting it today will not be able to get a single sahih hadith if the exact same criteria are applied. My apologies for boring your readers, but the point i am making is that when we know for sure (in agreement by all parties) that the hadith is neither complete, nor 100% accurate with regards to the exact words spoken by the Prophet, nor can it be critically challeneged, since it's authenticity relies on the readers trust that the people who narrated and who compiled hadith were of gifted memory and intellect and whose work should be questioned because they were pious and righteous. Consider how the Prophet himself needed no such special abilities (and was in fact deliberately kept illiterate) to convey Allah's message, then how can we accept as part of our Shariah ("Divine" Law) or doctrine of daily dos and donts which determine which actions are virtuous and therefore leading to Jannah and which acts are vices and leading to jahannam? In effect (apologies for any offence caused to learned ulema, i am merely making a logical arguments based on fact and reason, which are well within the bounds of Islam i would think) we are ridiculing Islam by establishing the doctrine of Shariah and including in it volumes of hadith which have been narrated, compiled, and critiqued and selected by mere men, and calling it our Divine Law.

Anonymous said...

Umar again...continued from last comment...

Abu-Hurairah's reliability can only be as reliable as the whole hadith collection process, which is not reliable enough to begin with, so all arguments whether for or against are relying on some form of unreliable information regarding him. Unfortunately the controversy exists, and what makes it more tragic is the he is the most quoted narrator. Any arguments on quantitative layers regarding his narrations, or his time spent with the Prophet(SAW) will only lead to conclusion that will stand partly on logic, and mainly on opinion, and the matter will not be laid to rest by such methods unfortunately, Without an actual living witness to the true personality of Abu-Hurairah, we will only go around in circles. The fact of the matter is that he exists and is there in the hadith far too much that it will always create suspicion, but without any solid proof (we only have opinions on him from different parties) we have to accept that Bukhari and Muslim and the others knew what they were doing. And this is my exact problem with Hadith in general, we can no longer verify them. The best we can do is further filter the remaining sahih hadith from all collections by removing the ones that contradict each other (regardless of the proportions of contradiction, because they were all collected using the same methods and criteria), and also remove the ones which are in clear contradiction with the Quran, or the general spirit of Islam (though this may come with its own set of problems), and accept that whatever is after this filteration process, that the hadith is neither complete nor absolutely accurate word for word as attributed to the Prophet(SAW) and therefore cannot be considered to establish any binding point of Shariah, that it serve only as a Historical and Philosophical legacy of the Prophet(SAW). Because the important legacies of the Quran and Sunnah are well preserved. The Quran is maintained by the Divine Promise of protection, and the Sunnah has been maintained through the tradition of Practice (remeber we didnt learn our Salat and other fundamentals through the written hadith, it never needed that, it has been maintained through an unbroken chain of Practice undeniably tracing its roots to the Prophet(SAW). Even the differences in practices of the different Sunni madhaib and the Ahle-hadith salafis and even to quite a large extent, the practices of the Shia can all be traced back to the Practices of the Prophet (SAW). We can argue all we like on who's got a better set of Practices but we cannot deny each other the consolation that we all have established our practices based on the Prophet(SAW) and no one else, and that the differences are negligable and do not justify fitnah. Hope I atleast got someone thinking.

Anonymous said...

Umar again (continued....)
Please do not misunderstand me, i am not one to question the intentions, the piety or the intellect of the great compilers, but i am increasingly led to realise that their work is now being abused to confuse the ummah. Their intentions were noble and simple, preserve what can be preserved of whatever is left and is likely true or we may lose the memory of the Prophet (SAW). How this became eventually the revolution that started shifting the ummah's attention from the Word of Allah to words of men (however intelligent or pious, they are still men), and started providing the opposing factions within the ummah, with fuel to validate their point of view and look down on the brother in the opposite camp with a different point of view. We hardly differ when we look at the Quran, but reduce ourselves to violence when we argue on hadith, and thereby insult the very work of the very Prophet(SAW) that we are supposedly fighting over.

Hadith has its place in our history and has its importance, but unless the distinction can be made clearly and finally without providing fuel for brother hating violence( like sunni against shia, sunni against ahle-hadith, shia against everyone else, etc, you get the point), if we cannot provide a pace to hadith in Islam that will prevent confusion and fitnah, then we must bite the bullet, ignore it and move on. I may sound harsh here, and my heart aches that we have reduced the memory of the Prophet(SAW) to such an insulting point, that i am forced to conclude that if the existence of Hadith (in its current form and reverence) continues to undermine the unquestionable Word of Allah, then we have to make the tough decision and make a change for the sake of the future generations.

Anonymous said...

Dear Gentlemens.


All Praises To Allah(swt) the Sustainer and creator Of Whole Univerese.


We beleive in unseen ( kindly refer Quran,Chapter:2 Verse 2-3) and we have firm faith in it. Please dont do not misguide other, every body having a mind. let them take thier own decision. As Said In sure Yaseen " Afala taqeeloon" Dont you have mind. Allah is the source of Strenght.


I Pray Allah(swt) to guide this Ummah to Right path.

Note: Dear Reader you can mail to me md_mustafa_ali@hotmail.com for any queries. i will try my best to answer it.

Anonymous said...

Something I find contradictory in these religious texts, and in this instance, the Qur'an.

It says that there is no compulsion in religion. Yet in the 114 suras of the Qur'an, 'hellfire' is mentioned something like 126 times.

When Muhammad was victorious in battle, the Qur'an talks about Allah having conquered the hearts of the enemy by instilling terror in their hearts.

Seems like the all merciful and compassionate Allah uses a similar strategy in persuading the 'faith'ful to obedience; fill their hearts with the fear/terror of hellfire.

That to me is a very real and serious contradiction.

As a friend once said, "You'll never get to heaven walking backwards out of hell."

Just a thought.

God bless us all. :-)

Anonymous said...

ok this is a comment for the last poster....First of all find me a quranic verse that uses the word instilling terror and fear and then we will talk. NO proof. All Bs...Btw i assume you're Christian...So here's my question to you (how authentic do you really think YOUR bible is.) Do you REALLY think God created man in his own image?

january5159 said...

This analysis of Abu Huraira does not relate to the authenticity of the hadiths. Abu Huraira is a person not a prophet. He is not infallible. He was beaten (whipped) by Umar when Umar was caliph. The Prophet (saw's) companion called him by an animal's name while the Prophet (saw) prohibited muslims calling another human by reference to an animal when ALLAH (swt) created such a person a human being.

Fatal Skillz said...

May Allah Guide you
You are of those who the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said "The end of times will come when the last of the Ummah insults the first of them" (paraphrase of Hadith)