Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

Published English translation

4. Ali has narrated from his father and Muhammad ibn ’Isma‘il from al-Fadl ibn Shadhan all from Hammad ibn ‘Isa from Hariz from Zurarah who has said the following: “Abu Ja‘far (a.s.), once said to us, ‘Should I demonstrate for you how the Messenger of Allah would take Wudu’?’ We replied, ‘Yes, please do so.’ He (the Imam) then asked for a bowl with a quantity of water in it. He (the Imam) placed it in front of him and uncovered both his forearms. He (the Imam) then immersed the palm of his right hand in the water, saying, ‘This is when the palm is clean and free of Najis (unclean) substances. He (the Imam) then filled the palm of his hand, placed on his forehead, saying ‘In the name of Allah’, allowed it to flow over the sides of his beard. He (the Imam) then passed his hand over his face and the apparent parts of his forehead only once. He (the Imam) then immersed his left hand in the water, filled his palm and placed it over his right elbow. He (the Imam) passed his palm over his forearm until water flowed toward the ends of his fingers. He (the Imam) then filled the palm of his right hand, placed it over his left elbow and passed it over his left forearm until water flowed over the ends of his fingers. He (the Imam) then wiped the front portion of his head and the back of his feet with whatever water was left in his left and right hands. Abu Ja‘far (a.s.), said, ‘Allah is odd. He loves odd numbers. Three handfuls of water is sufficient for Wudu’. One handful is for the face, one for the right forearm and one for the left forearm. With moisture in your right hand, wipe the front portion of your head, and with the remaining moisture on it wipe the back of your right foot and with the moisture in your left hand wipe the back of your left foot.’ Zurarah has said that Abu Ja‘far (a.s.), said, ‘Once a man asked ‘Amir al-Mu’minin about the Wudu’ of the Messenger of Allah and he (’Amir al-Mu’minin) demonstrated like this.’”

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/3/1/17/4

license

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

edition

Al-Kafi, volume 3, 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

83fc49949577511a0f2bf98bceea72322f0c4ad88cb7e4a55de4f51d85dd0165

source File Hash

c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2

original Source Url

https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/1/17/4

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 3 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.