Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 9

The Book about people with Divine Authority · Tacit and Explicit Testimony as proof of Amir al-Mu’minin Ali’s (a.s.) Divine Authority over the people after the Messenger of Allah · Volume 1, book 4, chapter 65, Hadith 9

Original Arabic text

9ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْوَلِيدِ شَبَابٍ الصَّيْرَفِيِّ عَنْ يُونُسَ بْنِ رِبَاطٍ قَالَ دَخَلْتُ أَنَا وَكَامِلٌ التَّمَّارُ عَلَى أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَقَالَ لَهُ كَامِلٌ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ حَدِيثٌ رَوَاهُ فُلانٌ فَقَالَ اذْكُرْهُ فَقَالَ حَدَّثَنِي أَنَّ النَّبِيَّ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) حَدَّثَ عَلِيّاً (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) بِأَلْفِ بَابٍ يَوْمَ تُوُفِّيَ رَسُولُ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) كُلُّ بَابٍ يَفْتَحُ أَلْفَ بَابٍ فَذَلِكَ أَلْفُ أَلْفِ بَابٍ فَقَالَ لَقَدْ كَانَ ذَلِكَ قُلْتُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ فَظَهَرَ ذَلِكَ لِشِيعَتِكُمْ وَمَوَالِيكُمْ فَقَالَ يَا كَامِلُ بَابٌ أَوْ بَابَانِ فَقُلْتُ لَهُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ فَمَا يُرْوَى مِنْ فَضْلِكُمْ مِنْ أَلْفِ أَلْفِ بَابٍ إِلا بَابٌ أَوْ بَابَانِ قَالَ فَقَالَ وَمَا عَسَيْتُمْ أَنْ تَرْوُوا مِنْ فَضْلِنَا مَا تَرْوُونَ مِنْ فَضْلِنَا إِلا أَلْفاً غَيْرَ مَعْطُوفَةٍ.

Published English translation

9. Ali ibn Muhammad has narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from Muhammad ibn al-Walid, Shabab al-Sayrafi fromYunus ibn Ribat who has said that once he and Kamil al-Tammar went to see abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.). Kamil said to the Imam (a.s.), “‘May Allah take my soul in service for your cause, there is a hadith which so and so son of so and so has narrated.” The Imam (a.s.) said, “Say and read it.” He (Kamil) then said, “He so and so narrated to me that the Holy Prophet narrated a thousand chapter to Ali on the day the Messenger of Allah died. Each of those chapters open a thousand chapter. The total becomes a Million chapter.” The Imam (a.s.) said, “That is how it happened.” I then said, “‘May Allah take my soul in service for your cause, has this become manifest to your followers and those who love you?” The Imam (a.s.) said, “O Kamil, only one or two chapters may have become so.” Kamil has said that the Imam (a.s.) then said, “You perhaps may not be able to narrate all our excellence and virtues. You do not narrate from our excellence and virtue but only a scattered thousand.”

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 (3/289)

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/1/4/65/9
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
c4263977a873c17bfd5564c95fb29c67e1d96a07f86ce2212ef99ad0327cd424
source File Hash
30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/65/9
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.