Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 23

The Book of Belief and Disbelief · The Excellence of the Poor Muslims · Volume 2, book 1, chapter 107, Hadith 23

Original Arabic text

23ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ عَنِ ابْنِ مَحْبُوبٍ عَنْ عَبْدِ الله بْنِ غَالِبٍ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ سَعِيدِ بْنِ الْمُسَيَّبِ قَالَ سَأَلْتُ عَلِيَّ بْنَ الْحُسَيْنِ (عَلَيهِما السَّلام) عَنْ قَوْلِ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَلَوْ لا أَنْ يَكُونَ النَّاسُ أُمَّةً واحِدَةً قَالَ عَنَى بِذَلِكَ أُمَّةَ مُحَمَّدٍ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وآلِه) أَنْ يَكُونُوا عَلَى دِينٍ وَاحِدٍ كُفَّاراً كُلَّهُمْ لَجَعَلْنا لِمَنْ يَكْفُرُ بِالرَّحْمنِ لِبُيُوتِهِمْ سُقُفاً مِنْ فِضَّةٍ وَلَوْ فَعَلَ الله ذَلِكَ بِأُمَّةِ مُحَمَّدٍ (صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وآلِه) لَحَزِنَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَغَمَّهُمْ ذَلِكَ وَلَمْ يُنَاكِحُوهُمْ وَلَمْ يُوَارِثُوهُمْ.

Published English translation

23. A number of our people have narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from ibn Mahbub from ‘Abd Allah ibn Ghalib from his father from Sa’id ibn al-Musayyib who has said the following: “Once I asked Ali ibn al-Husayn (a.s.) about the words of Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Holy, ‘Were it not that all people would become one nation, . . .’ - and the Imam said, ‘It (all people) stands for the followers of Muhammad (a.s.) all of whom might turn to disbelief, - ‘ ... We would have made for the unbelievers in the Beneficent, ceilings out of silver. . . (43:33) Had Allah done so to the followers of Muhammad (a.s.) the believers might feel very depressed and they would not establish any marital relations with and inheritance for those turning to disbelief (thus, they might become extinct).’” Note: To understand better, read the whole verse: ‘Were it not that all people would become one nation, We would have made for the unbelievers in the Beneficent, ceilings out of silver. . . (43:33 Had all unbelievers been given so much wealth, the common Muslims might have abandoned their religion considering the prosperity of the unbelievers as a sign of Allah’s happiness with them. In fact, according to Allah, worldly things are of no significance at all.

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: ضعيف على المشهور

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (9/373)

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/2/1/107/23
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
f60ba76080edc033fb9437a6a2b7ec4b35bfe2c1229359531e6ee6a7039790d8
source File Hash
d538c07d5f74e5fbc26b065897c076eab247d4d7c09e633fbb6184de9f37ee78
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/107/23
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.