the Messenger of Allah ﷺ came out. When he saw me, he smiled, for he recognized that I was hungry. He said: So I went with him, and a cup of milk was brought to him. He said to me, “Call the people of al-Suffah,” meaning that he wished to give them milk to drink. Abu Hurayrah said to himself: If I call the people of al-Suffah, what will be left for me?! But I had no choice but to comply with the Messenger’s command ﷺ. So he went and called them. At times, they numbered as many as eighty men. They came and all drank from this vessel, yet some remained in it. Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, was serving them, and the Prophet ﷺ said to him, “Drink, Abu Hirr.” So he drank. Then he said to him, “Drink,” and he drank, until he could find no room for milk in his stomach. He said, “By Allah, Messenger of Allah, I can find no way to take any more.”
The scholars inferred from this that a person may fill his stomach with food, but only on occasion.
Consider the blessing: this vessel sufficed for the people of al-Suffah and Abu Hurayrah, and some still remained in it. He used to say: People call me Abu Hurayrah, whereas the Prophet ﷺ named me Abu Hirr (1). Abu Hirr is preferable, because it is a diminutive form, and because it was the name the Prophet ﷺ gave him. For this reason, the dearest of Ali ibn Abi Talib’s, may Allah be pleased with him, nicknames was Abu Turab, because one day he was lying in the mosque with dust clinging to his body. The Prophet ﷺ began wiping the dust from him and saying, “Get up, Abu Turab.” (2)