Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 1

The Book on Oneness of Allah (God) · Chapter On Attribute Of Essence (Sifat al-DhDhat) Of Allah · Volume 1, book 3, chapter 12, Hadith 1

Original Arabic text

1ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ خَالِدٍ الطَّيَالِسِيِّ عَنْ صَفْوَانَ بْنِ يَحْيَى عَنِ ابْنِ مُسْكَانَ عَنْ أَبِي بَصِيرٍ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) يَقُولُ لَمْ يَزَلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ رَبَّنَا وَالْعِلْمُ ذَاتُهُ وَلا مَعْلُومَ وَالسَّمْعُ ذَاتُهُ وَلا مَسْمُوعَ وَالْبَصَرُ ذَاتُهُ وَلا مُبْصَرَ وَالْقُدْرَةُ ذَاتُهُ وَلا مَقْدُورَ فَلَمَّا أَحْدَثَ الاشْيَاءَ وَكَانَ الْمَعْلُومُ وَقَعَ الْعِلْمُ مِنْهُ عَلَى الْمَعْلُومِ وَالسَّمْعُ عَلَى الْمَسْمُوعِ وَالْبَصَرُ عَلَى الْمُبْصَرِ وَالْقُدْرَةُ عَلَى الْمَقْدُورِ قَالَ قُلْتُ فَلَمْ يَزَلِ الله مُتَحَرِّكاً قَالَ فَقَالَ تَعَالَى الله عَنْ ذَلِكَ إِنَّ الْحَرَكَةَ صِفَةٌ مُحْدَثَةٌ بِالْفِعْلِ قَالَ قُلْتُ فَلَمْ يَزَلِ الله مُتَكَلِّماً قَالَ فَقَالَ إِنَّ الْكَلامَ صِفَةٌ مُحْدَثَةٌ لَيْسَتْ بِأَزَلِيَّةٍ كَانَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَلا مُتَكَلِّمَ.

Published English translation

1. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Tayalisi from Safwan ibn Yahya from Ibn Maskan from Abu Basir that he heard Aba 'Abdillah (al-Sadiq) (as) say: "Allah (azwj) has always been our Lord. Knowledge was His essence without anything known, hearing was His essence without anything heard, sight was His essence without anything seen, and power was His essence without anything within His power. Then, when He created things and there were things to be known, His knowledge applied to the known things, His hearing to the heard things, His sight to the seen things, and His power to the things within His power. I asked, "Has Allah always been in motion?" He replied, "Allah is exalted above that; indeed, motion is an attribute that is created through action." I asked, "Has Allah always been speaking?" He replied, "Speech is a created attribute, not eternal. Allah (azwj) existed without being a speaker."

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: مجهول

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (9/2)

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/1/3/12/1
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
15e28ed5c6945e1ac51f84752808d43f38b6aa7086b18956bd1bfc7ec407e28b
source File Hash
30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/3/12/1
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.