Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 6

The Book of the Excellence of the Holy Quran · The Excellence of the Carriers of the Holy Quran · Volume 2, book 3, chapter 2, Hadith 6

Original Arabic text

6ـ أَبُو عَلِيٍّ الأشْعَرِيُّ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِيِّ بْنِ عَبْدِ الله عَنْ عُبَيْسِ بْنِ هِشَامٍ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا صَالِحٌ الْقَمَّاطُ عَنْ أَبَانِ بْنِ تَغْلِبَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) قَالَ النَّاسُ أَرْبَعَةٌ فَقُلْتُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ وَمَا هُمْ فَقَالَ رَجُلٌ أُوتِيَ الإيمَانَ وَلَمْ يُؤْتَ الْقُرْآنَ وَرَجُلٌ أُوتِيَ الْقُرْآنَ وَلَمْ يُؤْتَ الإيمَانَ وَرَجُلٌ أُوتِيَ الْقُرْآنَ وَأُوتِيَ الإيمَانَ وَرَجُلٌ لَمْ يُؤْتَ الْقُرْآنَ وَلا الإيمَانَ قَالَ قُلْتُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ فَسِّرْ لِي حَالَهُمْ فَقَالَ أَمَّا الَّذِي أُوتِيَ الإيمَانَ وَلَمْ يُؤْتَ الْقُرْآنَ فَمَثَلُهُ كَمَثَلِ التَّمْرَةِ طَعْمُهَا حُلْوٌ وَلا رِيحَ لَهَا وَأَمَّا الَّذِي أُوتِيَ الْقُرْآنَ وَلَمْ يُؤْتَ الإيمَانَ فَمَثَلُهُ كَمَثَلِ الآسِ رِيحُهَا طَيِّبٌ وَطَعْمُهَا مُرٌّ وَأَمَّا مَنْ أُوتِيَ الْقُرْآنَ وَالإيمَانَ فَمَثَلُهُ كَمَثَلِ الأتْرُجَّةِ رِيحُهَا طَيِّبٌ وَطَعْمُهَا طَيِّبٌ وَأَمَّا الَّذِي لَمْ يُؤْتَ الإيمَانَ وَلا الْقُرْآنَ فَمَثَلُهُ كَمَثَلِ الْحَنْظَلَةِ طَعْمُهَا مُرٌّ وَلا رِيحَ لَهَا.

Published English translation

6. Abu Ali al-Ash’ari has narrated from al-Hassan ibn Ali ibn ‘Abd Allah from ‘Ubays ibn Hisham who has said that Salih ibn al-Qammat has narrated from Aban ibn Taghlib has narrated from Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) who has said the following: “People are of four kinds. I (the narrator) then asked, ‘May Allah keep my soul in service for your cause, who are they?’ The Imam said, ‘A man who has received belief but not the Holy Quran, a man who has received the Holy Quran but not belief, a man who has received both belief and the Holy Quran and a man who has received none of then.’ I (the narrator) then said, ‘May Allah keep my soul in service for your cause, explain it to me.’ The Imam said, ‘The one who has received belief but not the Holy Quran is like a fruit that is sweet but has no aroma, the one who has received the Holy Quran but not belief is like pears that has a sweet fragrance but tastes bitter. The one who has received both the Holy Quran and belief is like citrus that tastes sweet and has a sweet fragrance. The one who has received neither the Holy Quran nor belief is like Hanzal (a bitter tasting fruit of a plant that tastes bitter and smells bitter).”’

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 (2/487)

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: صحيح

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī, vol. 1, pp. 153, 154

Assessment transcribed from the source's named scholar and reference. No new grading or consensus is asserted; differing entries remain separate.

Source, rights, and attribution

dataset Name
Thaqalayn public library, via ThaqalaynAPI snapshot
source Url
https://thaqalayn.com/hadith/2/3/2/6
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
2ba1a82cc76490a4f85feec07ce2bfc233b559aede2e758b4ee4efd4b4e499f5
source File Hash
d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/3/2/6
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.