and Abū Hurayrah, and Jābir, together with others of their rank, were giving legal verdicts in Madinah and transmitting reports from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ from the day ʿUthmān died until the day they themselves passed away. (1)
He said: It was to these five that the issuing of fatwā ultimately devolved.
Al-Shāfiʿī related: Mālik told us, from Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, from Bukayr ibn al-Ashajj, from Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī ʿAyyāsh al-Anṣārī:
He was sitting with Ibn al-Zubayr when Muḥammad ibn Iyyās ibn al-Bukayr came in and asked about a man who had pronounced triple divorce before consummation. Ibn al-Zubayr sent him to Abū Hurayrah and Ibn ʿAbbās, who were with ʿĀʾishah at the time, so he went and put the question to them.
Ibn ʿAbbās said to Abū Hurayrah, “Give him a ruling, O Abū Hurayrah, for a thorny issue has reached you.”
Abū Hurayrah replied, “One pronouncement separates her, while three make her unlawful for him.”
Ibn ʿAbbās issued the same verdict. (2)
Abū Hurayrah used to sit by ʿĀʾishah’s apartment and narrate, then he would say, “O lady of the chamber, do you disapprove of anything I have said?”
When she had finished her prayer she voiced no objection to what he had reported, but she remarked,
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not reel off hadith the way you people do.” (3)
(1) Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, vol. 2, p. 372.
(2) The chain of transmission is sound; the report is also found in Musnad al-Shafiʿi, 2/375, and in al-Muwattaʾ, no. 1198.
(3) Muslim, no. 2493, in the section on the Companions’ merits, through the isnad of Ibn Shihab, who said that ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr told him that ʿAʾisha said: “Does it not amaze you? Abu Hurayra came and sat beside my room narrating from the Prophet ﷺ, letting me hear him while I was engaged in tasbih (a voluntary prayer). He left before I had finished; had I overtaken him I would have corrected him, for the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not recite hadith continuously the way you do.”
Also transmitted by Abu Dawud, no. 3655; abridged by al-Tirmidhi, no. 3643; and recorded by al-Bukhari, 6/422 (Book of Merits), citing al-Layth from Yunus, from Ibn Shihab, from ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, from ʿAʾisha: “Does it not amaze you, Abā fulan? He came and sat beside my room …”.
ʿAʾisha’s statement “had I overtaken him I would have corrected him” means she would have objected and shown him that deliberate, measured delivery (tartil) of hadith is preferable to rapid, successive narration (sard).
Ibn Hajar explains that Abu Hurayra’s vast repertoire and prodigious memory made it difficult for him to slow down when narrating—much like the eloquent poet who said, “I wish to be concise, but the rhymes crowd into my mouth.”
See also Ibn ʿAsakir, Tarikh Dimashq, 19/119/2.