The Master of Memorizers : Abu Hurayrah RAH

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
Assalamualaikum WBT I bid to the honourable judges, the timekeepers, fellow
contestants and my dear brothers and sisters.
Ahem..
Excuse me for a while..
My wise members of the floor, do you know that in order to prepare for today,
a 10 pages long verses of wisdom was granted to me by her not-so-royal-highness,
my dear teacher. It was this longggg. Phew. At that spurs of time, my heart murmurs;
theres noooo wayyy Im able to remember the script on time. I am DOOMED!
Remembering things is definitely not my forte. How can I memorize a 10 pages Alien
Language script in a short amount of time? Right?? It is amazing how I can stand
here today confidently and boldly hold this heavy mic.
My dear brothers and sisters, in regards to remembering things, there is one
prominent figure in the Islamic World that tops everyone else. He is known as The
Master of Memorizers. Can you guess who that is? Yes, well done you are right! I
can hear you answer the question loudly in your heart. And this is the topic that I, will
deliver today; The Master of Memorizers: Abu Hurayrah RAH. In this speech, I would
tell a little bit of his background and I would attempt to relate the topic with our daily
lives as a student.

He is the honourable companion Abu Hurayrah, May Allah be pleased upon

him. Before embracing Islam, he was called bd Shams (slave of the sun). After he
embraced Islam, the Prophet Muhammad SAW called him bdul-Rahmaan (slave of
the most Merciful) and gave him the nickname of Abu Hurayrah (the father of a
kitten). There is a humorous reason behind his nickname but let us leave that story
for another time on another day, shall we? Now, let us zoom back to the topic why is
Abu Hurayrah RAH is called the Master of Memorizers.
Abu Hurayrah RAH was the most attached companion to the Prophet SAW.
He joined everything from battles, attended sessions of knowledge to accompanying
him everywhere he went. Apart from his formidable memory, this is one of the
reasons he was able to memorize a massive amount of more than 5000 hadeeth at a
short amount of time. He had free time at his disposal. This is because, he did not
seek in the worldly life anything but the pleasure of Allah SWT. Unlike many of the
Muhajireen, he did not busy himself in the market-places, with buying and selling.
And Unlike many of the Ansar, he had no land to cultivate nor crops to tend. He
stayed with the Prophet SAW and joined him on every journey and expedition. Thus,

he was able to watch and listen closely to his words. Ash-Shafii also narrated that
he is the person who memorised the most hadeeth in his time.
By Allah! I love Abu Hurayrah. We should appreciate and be grateful of what
he had done for us. Although he accepted Islam three years before the demise of the
Prophet SAW, yet he is the Hafidh, the Memorizer of this Ummah. This is not
surprising, because he had dedicated himself to that great task. He was just in the
company of the Prophet SAW for three years and he had that immeasurable
contribution to Islam. My dear members of the floor, what about me and you? What
have we contributed to the Ummah?! Allah says in Surah An-Najm ayah 39-41; And
that man has nothing but what he does (good or bad). And that his deeds will be
seen. Then he will be recompensed with a full and the best recompense. So, lets do
good deeds; then we can later receive good.
Brothers and sister, now, let us reflect on the life story of Abu Hurayrah and
how can we apply some of the good things in our lives. In my opinion, one of the
reasons why many Islamic scholars including Abu Hurayrah RAH could memorize so
easily was that they respected the knowledge. Because it was important to them, it
became something that took priority in their brain. For instance, there are many
students in your school. But, you only know the names of those who you deem
important or significant to you. The same thing happened when you only know your
friends nicknames. The problem is simple. We simply do not put enough importance
or priority in our minds. The respect for knowledge is one of the contributing factors
in the ability to retain the knowledge, as the scholars practiced. So, as students, we
should respect all the knowledge that all the subjects that we are learning. We
should not disregard any of the subjects just because we think that it is not as
important as the other ones.
Another lesson that we could take from the life story of Abu Hurayrah RAH, is
that he brought himself closer to the knowledge transmitter, our beloved Prophet
SAW. He was with him on every journey and expedition, so he was able to learn a lot
of things from him. So, here, we could practice this in our daily lives as students,
dont you think? Who are our main knowledge transmitter my dear brothers and
sisters? The teachers, of course. So, we should be closer to them and never skip
classes, always ask them questions, offer to help them anytime, anywhere. Then,
insyaaAllah, we might be able to receive the knowledge smoother. The points that I
want to stress here is that it is not IMPOSSIBLE for us to follow the footsteps of the
great companion of the Prophet SAW and be a great Muslim. We can do this!
Before I end my speech, I would like for all of us to beseech Allah to be
especially merciful to Abu Hurayrah RAH and the other companions. Thank you.