Abū Hurayra is supposed to have quoted the...

Abū Hurayra is supposed to have quoted the Prophet*(Salla-a-Allahu Alaihi Wa Alihi Wa Sallam) [Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him and His Household]* as saying, "Allāh‎ has trusted three persons for His revelation: Myself, Gabriel and Mu'awiyah." We wonder what Allāh‎ was doing for the revelation when Mu'awiyah was in the camp of the infidels. This quotation is cited by Ibn Asakir, Ibn Uday, Muhammed ibn Aa’ith, Muhammed ibn Abd al-Samarqandi, Muhammed ibn Mubarak al-Suri and al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi.

They all quote Abū Hurayra as saying, “سمعت رسول الله يقول: ان الله ائتمن على وحيه ثلاثة أنا و جبرائيل و معاوية". Imagine! He even puts his name before that of archangel Gabriel! Astaghfirullāh!

According to al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi, Abū Hurayra claimed, “ناول النبي معاوية سهما فقال: خذ هذا السهم حتى تلقاني به في الجنة!" The Prophet*(Salla-a-Allahu Alaihi Wa Alihi Wa Sallam) [Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him and His Household]* gave Mu'awiyah an arrow then said to him, "Take this arrow until we meet in Paradise." What a lucky arrow to enter Paradise!

Let us stop here to discuss this man, Abū Hurayra, who may have had the lion’s share in distorting the Prophet’s Sunnah especially when we come to know that he was quoted by a host of tabi’īn who in turn are quoted by hundreds others who in turn are quoted by thousands others..., and so on and so forth. This is why his name is in the forefront of narrators of hadīth .

It is of utmost importance to expose the facts relevant to Abu Hurayra so that Muslims may be cautious whenever they come across a tradition narrated by him or attributed to him which, all in all, reached the astronomical figure of 5,374 “traditions,” that is, more “traditions” than anyone else in history...

This figure is questioned not only due to the short period during which he saw the Prophet*(Salla-a-Allahu Alaihi Wa Alihi Wa Sallam) [Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him and His Household]* but also due to the fact that Abu Hurayra did not know how to read and write, and although he spent no more than three years in the company of the Prophet*(Salla-a-Allahu Alaihi Wa Alihi Wa Sallam) [Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him and His Household]* , that is to say, on and off, whenever such company did not involve any danger to his life.

This fact is supported by the renown compiler al-Bukhari, the most famous compiler of hadīth , who endorses no more than 93 of them! Muslim, another compiler of hadīth , endorses only 89 of Abū Hurayray’s alleged ahādīth .