Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book about people with Divine Authority · The Difference among he Messengers, the Prophets and the al-Muhaddath · Volume 1, book 4, chapter 3, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ أَحْمَدُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ وَمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ حَسَّانَ عَنِ ابْنِ فَضَّالٍ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ يَعْقُوبَ الْهَاشِمِيِّ عَنْ مَرْوَانَ بْنِ مُسْلِمٍ عَنْ بُرَيْدٍ عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ وَأَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فِي قَوْلِهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَما أَرْسَلْنا مِنْ قَبْلِكَ مِنْ رَسُولٍ وَلا نَبِيٍّ وَلا مُحَدَّثٍ قُلْتُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ لَيْسَتْ هَذِهِ قِرَاءَتَنَا فَمَا الرَّسُولُ وَالنَّبِيُّ وَالْمُحَدَّثُ قَالَ الرَّسُولُ الَّذِي يَظْهَرُ لَهُ الْمَلَكُ فَيُكَلِّمُهُ وَالنَّبِيُّ هُوَ الَّذِي يَرَى فِي مَنَامِهِ وَرُبَّمَا اجْتَمَعَتِ النُّبُوَّةُ وَالرِّسَالَةُ لِوَاحِدٍ وَالْمُحَدَّثُ الَّذِي يَسْمَعُ الصَّوْتَ وَلا يَرَى الصُّورَةَ قَالَ قُلْتُ أَصْلَحَكَ الله كَيْفَ يَعْلَمُ أَنَّ الَّذِي رَأَى فِي النَّوْمِ حَقٌّ وَأَنَّهُ مِنَ الْمَلَكِ قَالَ يُوَفَّقُ لِذَلِكَ حَتَّى يَعْرِفَهُ لَقَدْ خَتَمَ الله بِكِتَابِكُمُ الْكُتُبَ وَخَتَمَ بِنَبِيِّكُمُ الانْبِيَاءَ.

Published English translation

4. Ahmad ibn Muhammad and Muhammad ibn Yahya have narrated from Muhammad ibn al-Husayn from Ali ibn Hassan from Faddal from Ali ibn Ya’qub al-Hashimi from Marwan ibn Muslim from Burayd who has said the following. “I asked abu Ja‘far (a.s.) about the words of Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, “Satan would try to tamper with the desires of every Prophet or Messenger or Muhaddith (Muhaddith is a commentary of Imam (a.s.), whom We sent . .’” (22:52). I said, ““May Allah take my soul in service for your cause, the word Muhaddith does not exist in our reading. What then is the meaning of The Messenger, Prophet and Muhaddith?” The Imam (a.s.) said, “A messenger is one to whom the angel comes openly and speaks to him. A prophet is one who sees in his dream. Sometimes prophethood and messengership may exist in one person. Al-Muhaddith is one who hears the voice but does not see the person (of the angel).” I then asked, may Allah keep you well, “How would one know that what one sees in his dream is true and that it is from the angel?” The Imam (a.s.) said, “He receives help for success to know the angel. Allah has your book the last book and your Prophet the last of prophets.”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: ضعيف

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (2/292)

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/1/4/3/4
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
ab6a0bfcb319b2df62a051ff2cfac890d6fed19d03dc4f3f889825b62f2d7490
source File Hash
30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/3/4
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.