Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 6

The Book on Virtue of Knowledge · Chapter on Utilization of Knowledge · Volume 1, book 2, chapter 13, Hadith 6

Original Arabic text

6ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ خَالِدٍ عَنْ أَبِيهِ رَفَعَهُ قَالَ قَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فِي كَلامٍ لَهُ خَطَبَ بِهِ عَلَى الْمِنْبَرِ أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِذَا عَلِمْتُمْ فَاعْمَلُوا بِمَا عَلِمْتُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ إِنَّ الْعَالِمَ الْعَامِلَ بِغَيْرِهِ كَالْجَاهِلِ الْحَائِرِ الَّذِي لا يَسْتَفِيقُ عَنْ جَهْلِهِ بَلْ قَدْ رَأَيْتُ أَنَّ الْحُجَّةَ عَلَيْهِ أَعْظَمُ وَالْحَسْرَةُ أَدْوَمُ عَلَى هَذَا الْعَالِمِ الْمُنْسَلِخِ مِنْ عِلْمِهِ مِنْهَا عَلَى هَذَا الْجَاهِلِ الْمُتَحَيِّرِ فِي جَهْلِهِ وَكِلاهُمَا حَائِرٌ بَائِرٌ لا تَرْتَابُوا فَتَشُكُّوا وَلا تَشُكُّوا فَتَكْفُرُوا وَلا تُرَخِّصُوا لانْفُسِكُمْ فَتُدْهِنُوا وَلا تُدْهِنُوا فِي الْحَقِّ فَتَخْسَرُوا وَإِنَّ مِنَ الْحَقِّ أَنْ تَفَقَّهُوا وَمِنَ الْفِقْهِ أَنْ لا تَغْتَرُّوا وَإِنَّ أَنْصَحَكُمْ لِنَفْسِهِ أَطْوَعُكُمْ لِرَبِّهِ وَأَغَشَّكُمْ لِنَفْسِهِ أَعْصَاكُمْ لِرَبِّهِ وَمَنْ يُطِعِ الله يَأْمَنْ وَيَسْتَبْشِرْ وَمَنْ يَعْصِ الله يَخِبْ وَيَنْدَمْ.

Published English translation

6. A number of our people has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khalid from his father in a marfu‘ manner (rafa’ahu) from Amir al-Mu’minin Ali (a.s.) who has said the following. “Once Imam Ali (a.s.) said in one of his sermons, ‘O people, if you learn and gain knowledge you must act accordingly so that you may have guidance. A learned person who disregards his knowledge is like a lost and ignorant person who never comes to the right path due to his ignorance. In fact, you will find the case against such the learned that disregards his knowledge more sever and his regret more prolonged, compared to the ignorant person who wonders about in it. Both people stray and are devoid of goodness. Do not hesitate lest you will doubt and do not doubt lest you will disbelieve. Do not be lenient to your souls to play lazy. Do not trivialize the truth lest you will lose badly. It is of the truth to learn Fiqh, proper understanding of religion. It is of Fiqh, proper understanding of religion not to suffer deceit. The wisest for ones self among you is the one most obedient to his Lord. The most deceitful to himself among you is the disobedient one to his Lord. One who obeys Allah is safe and glad news awaits him but one who disobeys his Allah he loses and regrets.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: مرفوع

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (1/144)

Assessment transcribed from the source's named scholar and reference. No new grading or consensus is asserted; differing entries remain separate.

Shaykh Baqir al-Behbudi: Catalogue non-inclusion note (not an authenticity grade)

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī

Source records non-inclusion in this scholar's selection; this is not itself a weak or authentic grade.

Source, rights, and attribution

dataset Name
Thaqalayn public library, via ThaqalaynAPI snapshot
source Url
https://thaqalayn.com/hadith/1/2/13/6
license
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
edition
Al-Kafi, volume 1, Thaqalayn digital edition / Muhammad Sarwar translation
imported At
2026-10-18T21:36:12.871Z
license Url
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
rights Statement Url
https://thaqalayn.com/terms
attribution
Source: Thaqalayn (Stichting Thaqalayn). Compiler: Shaykh Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī. Translation: Muhammad Sarwar. Data transport: MohammedArab1/ThaqalaynAPI. No endorsement implied.
translator
Muhammad Sarwar
source Revision
becbad600b693ce23735d7403c4126ce7c896d34
content Hash
c679b65dbbf86b1ed9f7748e699e8c6e3bc867272dd6bf4b9de7bf7f7d00251b
source File Hash
30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/2/13/6
changes
Arabic and English texts preserved verbatim from pinned snapshot. Compiler introduction excluded where present; references mapped to fields; assessment whitespace trimmed; source-supplied English sanad retained separately. Search normalization is not applied to displayed text.
verification Note
Publisher content rights, translator attribution and structural checks, with independent publisher-page spot checks—not scholarly authentication or printed-edition collation. Historical text and scholarly reference strings may contain source errors; they are not silently corrected. No full commentary prose or inferred narrator identity is added. Muʿjam coverage, where present, is only the supplied excerpt, not the complete work.