Usool al Hadith - Forever Islam

The Companion-NarratorsABOO HURAYRAH. Aboo Hurayrah stands at the head of the list of hadeethtransmitters, due to the sheer bulk of his narrations. He had been regarded by theProphet himself as the most anxious of all Muslims to acquire knowledge ofhadeeth. Belonging to the tribe of Daws, an offshoot of the great clan of Azd, hecame to Medina in the seventh year of the Hijra, and on being told that theProphet was at Khaybar, went there and accepted Islam. Since that time, and untilthe death of the Prophet, he kept his company constantly, attending him andmemorising his words during the day, thereby sacrificing all worldly pursuits andpleasures. We are told that he divided his nights into three parts: one for sleeping,one for prayer, and one for study. After the death of the Prophet, he was appointedgovernor of Bahrain for a while during the caliphate of ‘Umar and acted asgovernor of Medina under the early Umayyad caliphs. He died in 59/678.When the Prophet had died, and information about religion and legaljudgements had to be sought indirectly, Aboo Hurayrah (who instructed morethan 800 students in hadeeth) poured out the store of knowledge he had someticulously accumulated. At times he was taken to task for reporting certaintraditions which were unknown to other Companions. But he would reply that hehad simply learnt what the Ansaar had missed because of attending to their landsand properties, and what the Emigrants had failed to learn because of theircommercial activities. Once, when he was taken to task by ‘Abdullaah ibn ‘Umarfor relating a particular hadeeth, he took him to Aa’ishah who bore witness to thetruth of what he had related. His knowledge and memory were also tested byMarwaan, who, having written down some traditions related by him, wanted himto relate the same after a year. He found them to be exactly identical to his earliernarration.Bearing in mind Aboo Hurayrah's intense dedication to learning hadeeth, hisdevotion to the Prophet, and the various tests which were applied to his memoryand scholarship by his contemporaries during his life, it is inconceivable that hewould have fabricated any hadeeth. This does not mean, however, that materialwas not falsely imputed to him at a later date. The fact that he narrated a uniquelylarge number of traditions itself did make inventing hadeeths in his name anattractive proposition.‘ABDULLAAH IBN ‘UMAR. The second most prolific narrator of hadeeth, hewas the son of the second Caliph. He had accepted Islam simultaneously with hisfather, and emigrated to Medina with him. He took part in many battles during the