Original Arabic text
Published English translation
6. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from Safwan ibn Yahya from ‘Isa ibn al-Sariyy abu al-Yasa’ who has said the following: “Once I said to Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) ‘Teach me, please, the basic principles of Islam that are necessary for everyone to know to his limits of understanding, and if he fails to learn them to the necessary levels his religion is destroyed and Allah does not accept his deeds. What is the limit of learning about the deeds with which someone’s religion can take proper shape and Allah may accept his deeds? What are the limits and degrees of the permissible level of ignorance and lack of knowledge of certain aspects of these principles?’ “The Imam said, ‘The matters necessary to learn are to testify that no one deserves to be worshipped except Allah, that Muhammad (a.s.) is the Messenger of Allah, that whatever he has brought from Allah is the truth and to affirm that paying Zakat (charity) is a right. (Of such necessary matters is) to affirm al-Wilayah (Divine Authority of ‘ A’immah ) that Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, has made obligatory upon the other people to obey and acknowledge the Divine Authority of certain members of the family of Prophet Muhammad (a.s.).’ I (the narrator) then asked the Imam, ‘Is al-Wilayah of an exclusive nature?’ The Imam said, ‘Yes, Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, has said, “O believers, obey Allah, obey the Messenger and those among you who possess Divine Authority.” (4:59) The Merssenger of Allah has said, “Whoever dies without knowing who the Imam of his time is, he is considered as a person dying in the time of ignorance (as an unbeliever).” There was the Messenger of Allah and there was Ali (a.s.) but others said there was Mu’awiyah. Then there was al-Hassan (a.s.) and then there was al-Husayn (a.s.). Others said that there were Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah and Husayn ibn Ali. They were not equals and certainly they were not equals, meaning thereby Ali, al-Hassan and al-Husayn with Mu’awiyah and his son Yazid.’ He has said that the Imam remained calm for a while and then said, ‘Do you want me to tell you additional facts?’ Hakam ibn al-’A’War said, ‘Yes, may Allah keep my soul in service to your cause.’ The Imam said, ‘Then there was Ali ibn al-Husayn (a.s.) then there was Muhammad ibn Ali, abu Ja’far. The Shi’a before abu Ja’far did not know the rules of Hajj, the lawful matters and the unlawful matters until there was abu Ja’far (a.s.). He opened it (system of religion) for them and explained to them the rules of their Hajj, the lawful and unlawful matters. People began to realize that they needed him very much while before they would ask other people for what they needed. This is how the facts are. The earth does not remain without an Imam and one who dies without knowing, who his Imam is, he is as though he was of the people of the dark ages of ignorance. The time when you need al-Wilayah most urgently is the time when your soul reaches here (pointing to his throat) and the world is cut off from you and then you say, ‘I have certainly been on the good side of the affairs, (a supporter of al-Wilayah).”’’ Abu Ali al-Ash’ari has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Jabbar from Safwan from ‘Isa ibn al-Sariyy abu al-Yasa’ from Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) a similar Hadith.
Narrator and transmission
See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.
Attributed scholarly assessments
Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: صحيح بسنديه
Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (7/108)
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/2/1/13/6
- 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
- b6898004fca18897be84204649e9d69712ee684e4843ff1bb5fd2ba96d18edb5
- source File Hash
- d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
- original Source Url
- https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/13/6
- 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.