Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

Published English translation

4. Muhammad ibn al-Hassan and Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Bandar have narrated from Ibrahim ibn Ishaq from ‘Abd Allah ibn Hammad al-Ansari from Sadir al- Sayrafi who has said the following: “Once I went in the presence of Abu ‘Abdillah (a.s.) and said, ‘By Allah, it is your obligation not to sit (without proclaiming your leadership).’ The Imam asked, ‘Why O Sadir?’ I said, ‘Because your friends, Shi’a (followers) and supporters are so many. By Allah, were Amir al-Mu’minin (Ali ibn abu Talib) (a.s.) to have that many Shi’a (followers) as your Shi’a, friends and supporters, no one of the tribe of Tamim or ‘Ady could dare to disturb him.’ The Imam said, ‘O Sadir, how many do you think they are?’ I said, ‘One hundred thousand.’ The Imam said, ‘One hundred thousand!’ I said, ‘Yes, in fact, they are up to two hundred thousand, and I said, ‘Half of the world (population) is your Shi’a.’ “The narrator has said that the Imam remained calm and then said, ‘Is it possible to come with us to Yanbu’?’ I said, ‘It is fine with me.’ He then asked to bring a donkey and a mule already saddled. 1 hurried to ride the donkey and he said, ‘O Sadir, can you consider to allow me ride the donkey?’ I said, ‘The mule is more beautiful and noble.’ He said, ‘The donkey is friendlier for me.’ I then dismounted and he rode the donkey and I rode the mule. We traveled until it was time for prayer. He said, ‘O Sadir, dismount and we should pray.’ Then he said, ‘This ground is soft, prayer is not permissible here.’ We moved to a red ground and he looked to a boy who shepherded goats. He said, ‘O Sadir, were I to have as many Shi’a (followers) as the number of these goats, then it would not have been permissible for me to sit (without proclaiming my leadership).’ We dismounted and prayed. When we finished the prayer 1 turned to the goats and counted them. There were seventeen heads of goats in the flock.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Source, rights, and attribution

dataset Name

Thaqalayn public library, via ThaqalaynAPI snapshot

source Url

https://thaqalayn.com/hadith/2/1/100/4

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

378167e2e10c11fed850345d170057cccd393c671e518275e5649aec3cd38dac

source File Hash

d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78

original Source Url

https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/100/4

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.