Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book of Belief and Disbelief · Purely Sincere · Volume 2, book 1, chapter 11, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنِ الْقَاسِمِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْمِنْقَرِيِّ عَنْ سُفْيَانَ بْنِ عُيَيْنَةَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) فِي قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ لِيَبْلُوَكُمْ أَيُّكُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلاً قَالَ لَيْسَ يَعْنِي أَكْثَرَ عَمَلاً وَلَكِنْ أَصْوَبَكُمْ عَمَلاً وَإِنَّمَا الإصَابَةُ خَشْيَةُ الله وَالنِّيَّةُ الصَّادِقَةُ وَالْحَسَنَةُ ثُمَّ قَالَ الإبْقَاءُ عَلَى الْعَمَلِ حَتَّى يَخْلُصَ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الْعَمَلِ وَالْعَمَلُ الْخَالِصُ الَّذِي لا تُرِيدُ أَنْ يَحْمَدَكَ عَلَيْهِ أَحَدٌ إِلا الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَالنِّيَّةُ أَفْضَلُ مِنَ الْعَمَلِ أَلا وَإِنَّ النِّيَّةَ هِيَ الْعَمَلُ ثُمَّ تَلا قَوْلَهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ قُلْ كُلٌّ يَعْمَلُ عَلى‏ شاكِلَتِهِ يَعْنِي عَلَى نِيَّتِهِ.

Published English translation

4. ‘Alī ibn Ibrāhīm, from his father, from al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, from al-Minqarī, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (AS), regarding the saying of Allah, the Exalted and Glorious: “That He may test you to see which of you is best in deeds” (67:2). He said: "It does not mean the one who performs the most deeds, but rather the one whose deeds are the most correct. And correctness comes from having fear of Allah, a truthful intention, and good conduct." <br>Then he (AS) said: "Preserving the deed until it becomes sincere is more difficult than performing the deed itself. A sincere deed is one for which you desire no praise from anyone except Allah, the Exalted and Glorious. And intention is superior to the deed. Behold, intention itself is (the essence of) the deed." Then he recited the saying of Allah, the Exalted and Glorious: “Say: Everyone acts according to his own manner” (17:84), and said: "It means according to his intention."

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 (7/77)

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/2/1/11/4
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
d78376b9e17bfdb99ad99ec5d686b503936927c9e24930030a7341cf8c859dac
source File Hash
d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/11/4
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.