Abu Hurairah’s Tears Turn to Joy: The Prayer for His Mother’s Guidance

Abu Hurairah رضي الله عنه wanted something more precious than wealth for his mother: he wanted her to accept Islam. He says in Sahih Muslim that he used to invite her while she was still a polytheist, but she repeatedly refused. Then one day, when he called her again, she said something about the Messenger of Allah ﷺ that he deeply disliked.

The words hurt him so much that he went to the Prophet ﷺ while crying. He did not ask for argument, punishment or worldly advantage. He asked for a prayer: “Messenger of Allah, pray to Allah that He guide the mother of Abu Hurairah.” The Prophet ﷺ answered with a brief supplication whose simplicity gives the moment its force: “O Allah, guide the mother of Abu Hurairah.”

Abu Hurairah left delighted by the Prophet’s prayer. The sadness with which he had arrived was already turning into hope before he even reached home. When he came to the door, he found it closed from inside. His mother heard his footsteps and told him to remain where he was. From behind the door he heard the sound of water.

The hadith then slows down at the decisive moment. His mother washed herself, put on her garment and covered her head before opening the door. When she faced her son, the words he had longed to hear finally came from her own mouth: she testified that there is no deity except Allah and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

Abu Hurairah immediately returned to the Prophet ﷺ. Earlier he had approached him with tears of grief; now he came shedding tears of joy. He announced the good news: Allah had answered the Prophet’s supplication and guided the mother of Abu Hurairah. The Prophet ﷺ praised Allah, extolled Him and spoke good words.

The same sahih hadith continues with a second request. Abu Hurairah asked the Prophet ﷺ to pray that he and his mother be beloved to the believing servants of Allah and that the believers be beloved to them. The Prophet ﷺ made that second supplication as well, and Abu Hurairah later described its effect. That love-prayer is authentic, but it remains a separate prayer within the same report; the central event here is the prayer for his mother’s guidance and her subsequent profession of faith.

Parallel reports in Sahih Ibn Hibban and Musnad Ahmad preserve the same essential sequence: Abu Hurairah’s grief, his request, the Prophet’s prayer for guidance, his mother’s profession of Islam, and his joyful return with news that the supplication had been answered.

The story therefore moves through a remarkably human arc: persistence, hurt, tears, a short prophetic prayer, a closed door, the sound of water, a declaration of faith, and tears again—but now tears of happiness. Its miracle is not spectacle. It is an answered prayer whose immediate outcome transformed a son’s deepest sorrow into gratitude to Allah.