Who was Abu Hurayrah, and why did he narrate more hadith than any other Companion?

Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) embraced Islam around the year of Khaybar (7 AH) and, though he accompanied the Prophet (peace be upon him) for only a few years, he devoted himself entirely to that company as one of the poor people of the Suffah, which is why he transmitted more narrations than any other Companion. He himself answered this objection in his own lifetime, saying that his brothers among the Muhajirun were busy in the market with their trade and the Ansar were busy with their property and land, while he stuck close to the Messenger of Allah content with what would fill his stomach, attending what they missed and memorising what they did not — and that he would not have narrated a single hadith at all were it not for the verses in which Allah condemns those who conceal the clear guidance He has sent down. He also reported that he complained to the Prophet of forgetting what he heard, and the Prophet told him to spread out his garment, then gathered his hands into it and told him to wrap it around himself, after which he never forgot anything he heard. The senior Companions and the Tabi'un accepted his narrations, and the later scholars of jarh wa ta'dil affirmed his precision and integrity without dissent.

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