attributing the Messenger’s ḥadīth to Kaʿb and Kaʿb’s ḥadīth to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. In another narration he said: “They would pass off what Kaʿb had said as coming from the Messenger of Allah, and what the Messenger of Allah had said as coming from Kaʿb. So fear Allah and be scrupulous in transmitting ḥadīth.”
Yazīd ibn Hārūn said: “I heard Shuʿbah say, ‘Abū Hurayrah used to practise tadlīs’—that is, he would relate what he had heard from Kaʿb and what he had heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ without distinguishing between the two (1).” Ibn ʿAsākir records this (2).
It seems that Shuʿbah was alluding to Abū Hurayrah’s report: “Man aṣbaḥa junuban falā ṣiyāma lah” (“Whoever greets the morning in a state of major ritual impurity, his fast is invalid”), for when he was cross-examined about it he said, “Someone informed me of it; I did not hear it directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” (3)
Shurayk related, from Mughīrah, from Ibrāhīm, who said: “Our companions used to leave aside some of Abū Hurayrah’s ḥadīth.” Al-Aʿmash likewise related from Ibrāhīm that he said, “They did not act upon every ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah.” (4)
Sufyān al-Thawrī related, from Manṣūr, from Ibrāhīm, that “they had reservations about certain ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah and would accept from him only those reports that described Paradise or Hell, exhorted to a righteous deed, or forbade an evil already prohibited in the Qur’an.” (5)
Ibn ʿAsākir championed Abū Hurayrah and answered what Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī had said. A group of Kufans supported Ibrāhīm’s view, but the great majority disagreed with them.
Abū Hurayrah, in truthfulness, retention, piety, worship, asceticism, and righteous deeds, occupied an exalted station.
Hammād ibn Zayd narrated, from ʿAbbās al-Jurayrī, from Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī, who said: “Abū Hurayrah would spend one third of the night in prayer, his wife another third, and his servant the remaining third; when one finished, he would wake the next, and that one would then wake the other.” (6)
And in the two Ṣaḥīḥs it is related from him that he said: “My close friend ﷺ enjoined me to fast three days of every month, to pray two rakʿahs of Ḍuḥā, and to perform Witr before I sleep.” (7)