Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 1

The Book about people with Divine Authority · The Imams (a.s.) have with all the books that Allah, the Most Holy, the Most High, has revealed and that they know them even the language in them are different · Volume 1, book 4, chapter 34, Hadith 1

Original Arabic text

1ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ يُونُسَ عَنْ هِشَامِ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ فِي حَدِيثِ بُرَيْهٍ أَنَّهُ لَمَّا جَاءَ مَعَهُ إِلَى أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَلَقِيَ أَبَا الْحَسَنِ مُوسَى بْنَ جَعْفَرٍ (عَلَيْهما السَّلام) فَحَكَى لَهُ هِشَامٌ الْحِكَايَةَ فَلَمَّا فَرَغَ قَالَ أَبُو الْحَسَنِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) لِبُرَيْهٍ يَا بُرَيْهُ كَيْفَ عِلْمُكَ بِكِتَابِكَ قَالَ أَنَا بِهِ عَالِمٌ ثُمَّ قَالَ كَيْفَ ثِقَتُكَ بِتَأْوِيلِهِ قَالَ مَا أَوْثَقَنِي بِعِلْمِي فِيهِ قَالَ فَابْتَدَأَ أَبُو الْحَسَنِ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) يَقْرَأُ الانْجِيلَ فَقَالَ بُرَيْهٌ إِيَّاكَ كُنْتُ أَطْلُبُ مُنْذُ خَمْسِينَ سَنَةً أَوْ مِثْلَكَ قَالَ فَ‏آمَنَ بُرَيْهٌ وَحَسُنَ إِيمَانُهُ وَآمَنَتِ الْمَرْأَةُ الَّتِي كَانَتْ مَعَهُ فَدَخَلَ هِشَامٌ وَبُرَيْهٌ وَالْمَرْأَةُ عَلَى أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَحَكَى لَهُ هِشَامٌ الْكَلامَ الَّذِي جَرَى بَيْنَ أَبِي الْحَسَنِ مُوسَى (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) وَبَيْنَ بُرَيْهٍ فَقَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) ذُرِّيَّةً بَعْضُها مِنْ بَعْضٍ وَالله سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ فَقَالَ بُرَيْهٌ أَنَّى لَكُمُ التَّوْرَاةُ وَالانْجِيلُ وَكُتُبُ الانْبِيَاءِ قَالَ هِيَ عِنْدَنَا وِرَاثَةً مِنْ عِنْدِهِمْ نَقْرَؤُهَا كَمَا قَرَءُوهَا وَنَقُولُهَا كَمَا قَالُوا إِنَّ الله لا يَجْعَلُ حُجَّةً فِي أَرْضِهِ يُسْأَلُ عَنْ شَيْ‏ءٍ فَيَقُولُ لا أَدْرِي.

Published English translation

1. From ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm, from his father, from al-Ḥasan ibn Ibrāhīm, from Yūnus, from Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam, in the narration of Burayh: When he (Burayh) came with Hishām to Abū ʿAbdillāh (as), they encountered Abū al-Ḥasan Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar (as). Hishām narrated the story to him (Imam Mūsā). When he finished, Abū al-Ḥasan (as) said to Burayh: "O Burayh, how well do you know your Book?" He replied: "I am knowledgeable of it." Then the Imam asked: "And how confident are you in your interpretation of it?" He said: "I am very confident in my knowledge of it." So Abū al-Ḥasan (as) began to recite the Injīl (Gospel). Upon hearing this, Burayh exclaimed: "It is you—or someone like you—I have been seeking for fifty years!" Burayh then believed (in Islam), and his faith was good and sincere. The woman who was with him also believed. Then Hishām, Burayh, and the woman entered upon Abū ʿAbd Allāh (as), and Hishām relayed the conversation that had taken place between Abū al-Ḥasan Mūsā (as) and Burayh. Abū ʿAbdillāh (as) said: "A progeny, some of them from others; and Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing." (3:34) Then Burayh asked: "How do you have the Torah, the Gospel, and the books of the prophets?" He (Imam al-Ṣādiq) replied: "They are with us, inherited from them. We recite them as they recited them, and we speak them as they spoke them. Indeed, God does not place a proof (ḥujjah) upon His earth who, when asked about something, says, 'I do not know.'"

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 (24/3)

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/1/4/34/1
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
9d019f2598a8bb08bffc0ae32dd90d6908a93c6279b44d8dff6289b49e39a3e5
source File Hash
30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/34/1
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.