Al-Kafi · Hadith 6

The Book on Virtue of Knowledge · Chapter on Innovations, Personal Opinions and Analogies · Volume 1, book 2, chapter 19, Hadith 6

Original Arabic text

6ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ بَعْضِ أَصْحَابِهِ وَعَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ هَارُونَ بْنِ مُسْلِمٍ عَنْ مَسْعَدَةَ بْنِ صَدَقَةَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) وَعَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنِ ابْنِ مَحْبُوبٍ رَفَعَهُ عَنْ أَمِيرِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) أَنَّهُ قَالَ إِنَّ مِنْ أَبْغَضِ الْخَلْقِ إِلَى الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ لَرَجُلَيْنِ رَجُلٌ وَكَلَهُ الله إِلَى نَفْسِهِ فَهُوَ جَائِرٌ عَنْ قَصْدِ السَّبِيلِ مَشْعُوفٌ بِكَلامِ بِدْعَةٍ قَدْ لَهِجَ بِالصَّوْمِ وَالصَّلاةِ فَهُوَ فِتْنَةٌ لِمَنِ افْتَتَنَ بِهِ ضَالٌّ عَنْ هَدْيِ مَنْ كَانَ قَبْلَهُ مُضِلٌّ لِمَنِ اقْتَدَى بِهِ فِي حَيَاتِهِ وَبَعْدَ مَوْتِهِ حَمَّالٌ خَطَايَا غَيْرِهِ رَهْنٌ بِخَطِيئَتِهِ وَرَجُلٌ قَمَشَ جَهْلاً فِي جُهَّالِ النَّاسِ عَانٍ بِأَغْبَاشِ الْفِتْنَةِ قَدْ سَمَّاهُ أَشْبَاهُ النَّاسِ عَالِماً وَلَمْ يَغْنَ فِيهِ يَوْماً سَالِماً بَكَّرَ فَاسْتَكْثَرَ مَا قَلَّ مِنْهُ خَيْرٌ مِمَّا كَثُرَ حَتَّى إِذَا ارْتَوَى مِنْ آجِنٍ وَاكْتَنَزَ مِنْ غَيْرِ طَائِلٍ جَلَسَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ قَاضِياً ضَامِناً لِتَخْلِيصِ مَا الْتَبَسَ عَلَى غَيْرِهِ وَإِنْ خَالَفَ قَاضِياً سَبَقَهُ لَمْ يَأْمَنْ أَنْ يَنْقُضَ حُكْمَهُ مَنْ يَأْتِي بَعْدَهُ كَفِعْلِهِ بِمَنْ كَانَ قَبْلَهُ وَإِنْ نَزَلَتْ بِهِ إِحْدَى الْمُبْهَمَاتِ الْمُعْضِلاتِ هَيَّأَ لَهَا حَشْواً مِنْ رَأْيِهِ ثُمَّ قَطَعَ بِهِ فَهُوَ مِنْ لَبْسِ الشُّبُهَاتِ فِي مِثْلِ غَزْلِ الْعَنْكَبُوتِ لا يَدْرِي أَصَابَ أَمْ أَخْطَأَ لا يَحْسَبُ الْعِلْمَ فِي شَيْ‏ءٍ مِمَّا أَنْكَرَ وَلا يَرَى أَنَّ وَرَاءَ مَا بَلَغَ فِيهِ مَذْهَباً إِنْ قَاسَ شَيْئاً بِشَيْ‏ءٍ لَمْ يُكَذِّبْ نَظَرَهُ وَإِنْ أَظْلَمَ عَلَيْهِ أَمْرٌ اكْتَتَمَ بِهِ لِمَا يَعْلَمُ مِنْ جَهْلِ نَفْسِهِ لِكَيْلا يُقَالَ لَهُ لا يَعْلَمُ ثُمَّ جَسَرَ فَقَضَى فَهُوَ مِفْتَاحُ عَشَوَاتٍ رَكَّابُ شُبُهَاتٍ خَبَّاطُ جَهَالاتٍ لا يَعْتَذِرُ مِمَّا لا يَعْلَمُ فَيَسْلَمَ وَلا يَعَضُّ فِي الْعِلْمِ بِضِرْسٍ قَاطِعٍ فَيَغْنَمَ يَذْرِي الرِّوَايَاتِ ذَرْوَ الرِّيحِ الْهَشِيمَ تَبْكِي مِنْهُ الْمَوَارِيثُ وَتَصْرُخُ مِنْهُ الدِّمَاءُ يُسْتَحَلُّ بِقَضَائِهِ الْفَرْجُ الْحَرَامُ وَيُحَرَّمُ بِقَضَائِهِ الْفَرْجُ الْحَلالُ لا مَلِي‏ءٌ بِإِصْدَارِ مَا عَلَيْهِ وَرَدَ وَلا هُوَ أَهْلٌ لِمَا مِنْهُ فَرَطَ مِنِ ادِّعَائِهِ عِلْمَ الْحَقِّ.

Published English translation

6. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from certain persons of his people and Ali ibn Ibrahim from his father from Harun ibn Muslim from Mas‘ada ibn Sadaqa from abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) and Ali ibn Ibrahim from his father from ibn Mahbub in a marfu’ manner from Amir al-Mu’minin Ali (a.s.) who has said the following. “Of the most intensely disliked men before Allah, the Majestic, the Most Glorious, are two kinds of people: A man whom Allah has left all to his own soul and he deviates from the path of justice and is intensely attracted towards the words innovation. He seems a master in performing prayer and fasting but is a mischief to deceive people; he has strayed from guidance of the people before him and misleads those who may follow him in his lifetime and after his death. He carries the responsibility for others sins and is the hostage of his own sins. The other man is one who collects ignorance among the ignorant, himself a captive of darkness of the mischievous. The, humanoids, people who look like people, consider him a scholar but he has not been even for a complete day with scholars. He has made an early effort to accumulate some thing that its being of a smaller quantity is better than in larger quantities and in this way he has quenched himself with polluted water and has treasured what is of no use. He sits among the people as a judge to carry the responsibility of what is confusing and uncertain to others. He may even oppose the ruling of the judge before him. One can never tell whether his judgment will remain valid or a judge after him will over turn it just as he has done to the judgments of the judges before him. If he would face one of the complex and difficult issues he comes up with a heap of his personal opinions and then he shapes it up as a clear-cut judgment. In fact, he has dressed himself up with doubtful issue the way a spider waves his fragile web. He is not sure if he has done the right thing or the wrong one. He does not consider the fact that in an unknown case to have proper knowledge is necessary and does not see that beyond his opinion there is a school of law. He analogies one thing to the other but it does not matter to him if his opinion will turn out to be a lie. If an issue is dark (not known) to him he hides it to hide his own ignorance so that people will not say he does not know. He then boldly judges and thus he is the key to hazards, a rider of doubts, perplexed in ignorance and never regrets his lacking knowledge. The level of his knowledge never rises to clear-cut certainty so that he would benefit. He blows out Hadith like winds that blow away hay. The legacies weep from him, the bloods (judging the case of murder) shout against him. The lawful marital relations become unlawful because of his judgment and unlawful ones become lawful. He has no confidence in the judgments issues he can never be trusted for his judgments that he may make nor was he qualified for what he may have done in the matters that he claimed to have true knowledge.”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: سنده الول ضعيف والثاني مرفوع

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (1/187)

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/1/2/19/6
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: 17dab9a4eb7a87d79321939279355381eaa6382ea7a55d3bba0c46a4df8b59e9
source File Hash: 30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url: https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/2/19/6
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.