Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said: “Sāʿid ibn Abī Maryam narrated to us; al-Darāwardī narrated to us; he said: Khuthaym ibn (1) ʿArāk ibn Mālik narrated to me, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, who said:

‘The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, set out and left Sibaʿ ibn ʿUrfaṭah in charge of Madinah. I myself had just arrived in Madinah as an emigrant (2), and I performed the dawn prayer behind Sibaʿ. In the first prostration he recited Sūrah Maryam, and in the second, “Woe to those who give short measure” [Sūrah al-Muṭaffifīn]. I thereupon said to myself, “Woe to Abu So-and-so”—a man living in the land of al-Azd—“for he uses two measures: one by which he weighs for himself, and another by which he cheats the people (3).’”

Al-Bukhārī records in his Ṣaḥīḥ that on the very night before Abū Hurayrah met the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, his slave boy went missing, and throughout the night he kept chanting:

O night whose length and hardship were so great,
Yet you delivered her from the stronghold of disbelief.

When he came before the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, the Prophet said, “Here is your slave boy.” He replied, “He is free for the sake of Allah—Exalted is He— (4).”

After that, Abū Hurayrah clung to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, never leaving him whether at home or on a journey. Of all people he was the most eager to hear the ḥadīth from him and to understand them, and he remained in his company even when his stomach was full.

Abū Hurayrah—having once blown his nose into a linen shirt he happened to be wearing—exclaimed, “Bravo, bravo (5)! Abū Hurayrah is blowing his nose into linen! I remember when I would collapse between the pulpit and the apartments from sheer hunger, and passers-by would say, ‘He is mad,’ while nothing was wrong with me except hunger. By Allah, besides Whom there is no deity, I used to press my liver against the ground out of hunger and tie a stone to my belly out of hunger. I would ask someone to recite a verse to me, although I knew it better than he did, only so that he might take me to his house and give me something to eat (6).” He also mentioned the story of the milk shared with the Ahl al-Suffa (the Companions of the Veranda), as we have already cited in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa.

Imām Aḥmad (7) said: “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us; ʿIkrima ibn ʿAmmār (8) narrated to us; he said: Abū Kathīr—who is…"