Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 1

The Book of Belief and Disbelief · Doubt · Volume 2, book 1, chapter 170, Hadith 1

Original Arabic text

1ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ يُونُسَ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ قَالَ كَتَبْتُ إِلَى الْعَبْدِ الصَّالِحِ (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) أُخْبِرُهُ أَنِّي شَاكٌّ وَقَدْ قَالَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) رَبِّ أَرِنِي كَيْفَ تُحْيِ الْمَوْتى‏ وَأَنِّي أُحِبُّ أَنْ تُرِيَنِي شَيْئاً فَكَتَبَ (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَانَ مُؤْمِناً وَأَحَبَّ أَنْ يَزْدَادَ إِيمَاناً وَأَنْتَ شَاكٌّ وَالشَّاكُّ لا خَيْرَ فِيهِ وَكَتَبَ إِنَّمَا الشَّكُّ مَا لَمْ يَأْتِ الْيَقِينُ فَإِذَا جَاءَ الْيَقِينُ لَمْ يَجُزِ الشَّكُّ وَكَتَبَ إِنَّ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ يَقُولُ وَما وَجَدْنا لأكْثَرِهِمْ مِنْ عَهْدٍ وَإِنْ وَجَدْنا أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَفاسِقِينَ قَالَ نَزَلَتْ فِي الشَّاكِّ.

Published English translation

1. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Yunus from al- Husayn ibn Hakam who has said the following: “Once I wrote to the virtuous servant (a.s) saying that I had doubt and Ibrahim (a.s) had said, ‘Lord, show me how you will bring the dead to life?’ (2: 260) and I would love that you show me something. Thus, he (a.s) wrote back to me, ‘Ibrahim was a believer. He wanted to increase his belief. You, however, have doubt and there is nothing good in doubt.’ And he wrote, ‘Doubt comes when there is no certainty when certainty, comes then doubting is not permissible.’ He wrote further, ‘Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, has said, “We did not find many among them keeping their promises. However, We did find many evil-doers among them.” (7:102) The Imam said, ‘It was revealed about people who doubt.’”

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 (11/180)

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/2/1/170/1
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
d90a05e9f23398da6b4c8e0a08e70ef92496a4741d1553cd329a66d77a17f7a2
source File Hash
d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/170/1
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. 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.