Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book of Belief and Disbelief · Paganism Considering Things as Partners of Allah · Volume 2, book 1, chapter 169, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ يُونُسَ عَنِ ابْنِ بُكَيْرٍ عَنْ ضُرَيْسٍ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) فِي قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَما يُؤْمِنُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ بِالله إِلا وَهُمْ مُشْرِكُونَ قَالَ شِرْكُ طَاعَةٍ وَلَيْسَ شِرْكَ عِبَادَةٍ وَعَنْ قَوْلِهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَنْ يَعْبُدُ الله عَلى‏ حَرْفٍ قَالَ إِنَّ الآيَةَ تَنْزِلُ فِي الرَّجُلِ ثُمَّ تَكُونُ فِي أَتْبَاعِهِ ثُمَّ قُلْتُ كُلُّ مَنْ نَصَبَ دُونَكُمْ شَيْئاً فَهُوَ مِمَّنْ يَعْبُدُ الله عَلَى حَرْفٍ فَقَالَ نَعَمْ وَقَدْ يَكُونُ مَحْضاً.

Published English translation

4. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Yunus from ibn Bukayr from Durays from Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) who has said the following: “About the words of Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, ‘Most of them do not believe in Allah; they are but pagans,’ (12:106) the Imam said, ‘Al-Shirk (paganism) is obedience and it is not worship,’ and the words of Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, ‘ . . . certain people worship Allah to achieve worldly gains. . . .,’ (22:11) the Imam said, ‘A verse comes down about a man and then it applies to his followers.’ I then said, ‘Do those who appoint others (as people possessing Divine Authority) instead of you ( Ahl al-Bayt) worship for worldly gains?’ The Imam said, ‘Yes, at certain cases it is just that ( al - Shirk ).’”

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 (11/176)

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/2/1/169/4
license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
edition: Al-Kafi, volume 2, 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: 7eb437e8a14ab6b60585fed59236becbff3906bdccc409a78c68aa04ea0ba1b7
source File Hash: d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url: https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/169/4
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. Snapshot URL's erroneous volume 1 segment corrected to volume 2 using the reviewed file/book/volume metadata and publisher chapter structure; original URL retained for audit.
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.