Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 2

The Book of Belief and Disbelief · The Clay from Which the Believers and Unbelievers Are Made · Volume 2, book 1, chapter 1, Hadith 2

Original Arabic text

2ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْحَسَنِ عَنِ النَّضْرِ بْنِ شُعَيْبٍ عَنْ عَبْدِ الْغَفَّارِ الْجَازِيِّ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) قَالَ إِنَّ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ خَلَقَ الْمُؤْمِنَ مِنْ طِينَةِ الْجَنَّةِ وَخَلَقَ الْكَافِرَ مِنْ طِينَةِ النَّارِ وَقَالَ إِذَا أَرَادَ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ بِعَبْدٍ خَيْراً طَيَّبَ رُوحَهُ وَجَسَدَهُ فَلا يَسْمَعُ شَيْئاً مِنَ الْخَيْرِ إِلا عَرَفَهُ وَلا يَسْمَعُ شَيْئاً مِنَ الْمُنْكَرِ إِلا أَنْكَرَهُ قَالَ وَسَمِعْتُهُ يَقُولُ الطِّينَاتُ ثَلاثٌ طِينَةُ الأنْبِيَاءِ وَالْمُؤْمِنُ مِنْ تِلْكَ الطِّينَةِ إِلا أَنَّ الأنْبِيَاءَ هُمْ مِنْ صَفْوَتِهَا هُمُ الأصْلُ وَلَهُمْ فَضْلُهُمْ وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ الْفَرْعُ مِنْ طِينٍ لازِبٍ كَذَلِكَ لا يُفَرِّقُ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ بَيْنَهُمْ وَبَيْنَ شِيعَتِهِمْ وَقَالَ طِينَةُ النَّاصِبِ مِنْ حَمَإٍ مَسْنُونٍ وَأَمَّا الْمُسْتَضْعَفُونَ فَمِنْ تُرَابٍ لا يَتَحَوَّلُ مُؤْمِنٌ عَنْ إِيمَانِهِ وَلا نَاصِبٌ عَنْ نَصْبِهِ وَلله الْمَشِيئَةُ فِيهِمْ.

Published English translation

2. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Muhammad ibn al-Hassan from al- Nadr ibn Shu’ayb from ‘Abd al-Ghaffar al-Jaziyy from Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) who has said the following: “Allah, the Majestic, the Glorious, created the believers from the clay of paradise. He created the unbelievers from the clay of fire. He then said, ‘When Allah, the Majestic, the Glorious, decides to grant good to one of His servants. He purifies his spirit and body. Whenever he hears any good thing he recognizes it. Whenever he hears any bad things he dislikes them.’ I (the narrator) then heard him saying, ‘The clays are of three kinds: (a) one is the clay of the prophets from which the believers are also created, except that the prophets are made of the superior kind of clay. The prophets are the roots and the believers are the branches and for this reason they are more excellent than the believers. The believers are created from a stickier kind of clay. Thus Allah, the Majestic, the Glorious will not keep them apart from their followers.’ The Imam than said, ‘The clay of those who insult (‘ A’immah ) are from a black clay that smells foul. The weak ones are made from soil. The believers do not change their faith nor do evil doers (those who insult ‘ A’immah , recipients of divine supreme covenant) do so and Allah has a definite goal behind it.’”

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 (4/7)

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/2/1/1/2
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
961069e2206c8a2b739ce94de8eb2d545397a197551aeeac472d1b98405fe15b
source File Hash
d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/1/2
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.