Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 5

The Book of Prayer · Minimum and Maximum Tasbih in Ruku‘ and Sajdah · Volume 3, book 4, chapter 26, Hadith 5

Original Arabic text

5ـ عَلِيٌّ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ عَبْدِ الله بْنِ الْمُغِيرَةِ عَنْ هِشَامِ بْنِ الْحَكَمِ قَالَ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) مَا مِنْ كَلِمَةٍ أَخَفَّ عَلَى اللِّسَانِ مِنْهَا وَلاَ أَبْلَغَ مِنْ سُبْحَانَ الله قَالَ قُلْتُ يُجْزِئُنِي فِي الرُّكُوعِ وَالسُّجُودِ أَنْ أَقُولَ مَكَانَ التَّسْبِيحِ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ الله وَالْحَمْدُ لله وَالله أَكْبَرُ قَالَ نَعَمْ كُلُّ ذَا ذِكْرُ الله قَالَ قُلْتُ الْحَمْدُ لله وَلاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ الله قَدْ عَرَفْنَاهُمَا فَمَا تَفْسِيرُ سُبْحَانَ الله قَالَ أَنَفَةٌ لله أَ مَا تَرَى الرَّجُلَ إِذَا عَجِبَ مِنَ الشَّيْ‏ءِ قَالَ سُبْحَانَ الله.

Published English translation

5. Ali has narrated from his father from ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mughirah from Hisham ibn al-Hakam who has said the following: “Abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), has said, ‘No word is lighter, easier and more eloquent for the tongue than Subhana Allah (Allah is free of all defects).’ I (the narrator) then asked, ‘Can I say Tahlil (no one deserves worship except Allah), Tahmid (it is Allah only who deserves all praise) and Takbir (Allah is great beyond description), instead of Tasbih (Allah is free of all defects)?’ He (the Imam) said, ‘Yes, all of them are speaking of Allah.’ I (the narrator) said, ‘We know the meaning of Tahmid (it is Allah only who deserves all praise) and Tahlil (no one deserves worship except Allah). What is the explanation of Tasbih (Allah is free of all defects)?’ He (the Imam) said, ‘It is to speak of the glory of Allah, consider when a man is marveled because of something says, ‘Subhana Allah (Allah is free of all defects).””

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: حسن

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (15/142)

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. 280

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/3/4/26/5
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
ba207e79bb71265d4003137654957f932ebf5137f7dfc2297d3e4589879eec76
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/26/5
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.