Then he summoned him and said to him...

Then he summoned him and said to him: Do you remember that when I made you a wali over Bahrayn, you were barefooted! then I came to know that you bought horses with a thousand and six hundred dinars?!! He said: We had horses that bred and multiplied and donations that were given successively! He said: I have allocated for you enough wages and sustenance, and this is a favour that you should fulfil. He said: I am not obliged to do this for you!

Umar replied: By God you should do so, and I have the right to hit your back for it. Then he stood up holding the durrah (pearl), beating him with it till causing blood to come out (from his back). After that he said to him: Bring it. He replied: I have taken it into account. Umar said: That may be approved only in case you have earned it through lawful means, and discharged it willingly!

Have you come from the farthest spot in the Bahrayn, to this region where taxes are collected from people for you, neither for God nor for the Muslims? Verily Umaymah (mother of Abu Hurayrah) has never produced you but only for pasturing the red camels. 417 In another narration reported by Abu Hurayrah himself: Umar said: O the enemy of Allah and enemy of His Book! you have looted property of Allah, wherefrom you collected all these ten thousand (dinars)?

I suffice with the reports cited here, as they can supply enough information. His death: Abu Hurayrah died in 59 H, at the age of eighty, in his palace in the Aqiq. His coffin was carried to the Medina and he was buried in al-Baqi' (graveyard). Salat al-mayyit (prayer upon the dead) was performed on him by al-Walid ibn Utbah ibn Abi Sufyan, who was the then emir of al-Madinah, as a sign of honour to him.

When al-Walid sent a letter to his uncle Mu'awiyah announcing to him the death of Abu Hurayrah, Mu'awiyah wrote to him: "You have to seek and know whomever he left behind (wife and children), and pay to his heirs ten thousand dirhams, doing the honours of them and treating them amicably." Thus their support and donations to him continued even after his death.

A General Word in His Regard Reaching this stage of the biography of Abu Hurayrah, I follow by quoting some words uttered by the great scholar and muhaddith al-Sayyid Rashid Rida, about him. "He embraced Islam in the year 7H., keeping the company of the Messenger of Allah for three-plus years, so most of the traditions he reported were not got directly from the Prophet but he heard them from the and Followers.