Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book of Belief and Disbelief · Not to Invite People to Belief · Volume 2, book 1, chapter 94, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنِ ابْنِ فَضَّالٍ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ عُقْبَةَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ قَالَ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) اجْعَلُوا أَمْرَكُمْ هَذَا لله وَلا تَجْعَلُوهُ لِلنَّاسِ فَإِنَّهُ مَا كَانَ لله فَهُوَ لله وَمَا كَانَ لِلنَّاسِ فَلا يَصْعَدُ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ وَلا تُخَاصِمُوا بِدِينِكُمُ النَّاسَ فَإِنَّ الْمُخَاصَمَةَ مَمْرَضَةٌ لِلْقَلْبِ إِنَّ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ قَالَ لِنَبِيِّهِ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وآلِه) إِنَّكَ لا تَهْدِي مَنْ أَحْبَبْتَ وَلكِنَّ الله يَهْدِي مَنْ يَشاءُ وَقَالَ أَ فَأَنْتَ تُكْرِهُ النَّاسَ حَتَّى يَكُونُوا مُؤْمِنِينَ ذَرُوا النَّاسَ فَإِنَّ النَّاسَ أَخَذُوا عَنِ النَّاسِ وَإِنَّكُمْ أَخَذْتُمْ عَنْ رَسُولِ الله (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وآلِه) وَعَلِيٍّ (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) وَلا سَوَاءٌ وَإِنَّنِي سَمِعْتُ أَبِي يَقُولُ إِذَا كَتَبَ الله عَلَى عَبْدٍ أَنْ يُدْخِلَهُ فِي هَذَا الأمْرِ كَانَ أَسْرَعَ إِلَيْهِ مِنَ الطَّيْرِ إِلَى وَكْرِهِ.

Published English translation

4. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from ibn Faddal from Ali ibn ‘Uqbah from his father who has said the following: “Once Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) said, ‘Keep your cause (belief), for the sake of Allah and do not make it for people; what is for Allah is for Allah and what is for people cannot ascend to heaven. Do not argue with people about your religion; argumentation causes sickness to the heart. Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, has said to His Holy Prophet, ‘(Muhammad), you cannot guide whomever you love, but Allah guides whomever He wants. . . .’ (28:56) He has also said, ‘. . . (Muhammad), do you force people to have faith’? (10:99). Leave the people alone; they take it from people and you take it from the Messenger of Allah and from Amir al-Mu’minin (Ali ibn abu Talib), recipients of divine supreme covenant, and this is not equal. I heard my father saying, ‘When Allah writes for a servant to enter into this cause (belief of AM al-Bayt) he rushes to it quicker than a bird to its nest.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: حسن موثق

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (9/155)

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, p. 96

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/2/1/94/4
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
355866688d33cce0094b76a0a40dc3f7d6663b9d400a9d77e11a17f4035f2c5c
source File Hash
d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/94/4
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.