Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 3

The Book of Prayer · Mistakes in Salah (Prayer) of Three or Four Rak‘at · Volume 3, book 4, chapter 40, Hadith 3

Original Arabic text

3ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ وَمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ عَنِ الْفَضْلِ بْنِ شَاذَانَ جَمِيعاً عَنْ حَمَّادِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ حَرِيزٍ عَنْ زُرَارَةَ عَنْ أَحَدِهِمَا (عَلَيْهِما الْسَّلام) قَالَ قُلْتُ لَهُ مَنْ لَمْ يَدْرِ فِي أَرْبَعٍ هُوَ أَمْ فِي ثِنْتَيْنِ وَقَدْ أَحْرَزَ الثِّنْتَيْنِ قَالَ يَرْكَعُ رَكْعَتَيْنِ وَأَرْبَعَ سَجَدَاتٍ وَهُوَ قَائِمٌ بِفَاتِحَةِ الْكِتَابِ وَيَتَشَهَّدُ وَلاَ شَيْ‏ءَ عَلَيْهِ وَإِذَا لَمْ يَدْرِ فِي ثَلاَثٍ هُوَ أَوْ فِي أَرْبَعٍ وَقَدْ أَحْرَزَ الثَّلاَثَ قَامَ فَأَضَافَ إِلَيْهَا أُخْرَى وَلاَ شَيْ‏ءَ عَلَيْهِ وَلاَ يَنْقُضُ الْيَقِينَ بِالشَّكِّ وَلاَ يُدْخِلُ الشَّكَّ فِي الْيَقِينِ وَلاَ يَخْلِطُ أَحَدَهُمَا بِالآخَرِ وَلَكِنَّهُ يَنْقُضُ الشَّكَّ بِالْيَقِينِ وَيُتِمُّ عَلَى الْيَقِينِ فَيَبْنِي عَلَيْهِ وَلاَ يَعْتَدُّ بِالشَّكِّ فِي حَالٍ مِنَ الْحَالاَتِ.

Published English translation

3. Ali ibn Ibrahim 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: “I once asked one of the two Imam, ‘Alayhim al-Salam, about a man who performs Salah (prayer) but does not know if he is in the second or fourth Rak‘at but he knows that he has performed two Rak‘at. He (the Imam) said, ‘He performs two Rak‘at and four Sujud (prostrations). He does it in a standing position with al-Fatihah al-Kitab and Tashahhud (testimonies of belief) and he is not obligated for anything in this matter. If he does not know he is in the third or fourth and if he has secured three Rak‘at, he stands up to perform one more Rak‘at and he is not obligated for anything in this matter. He does not destroy his certainty with doubt and doubt does not enter into certainty. No one of them mixes with the other but doubt is destroyed by certainty and he completes with certainty, based on certainty and does not depend on doubt in no condition whatsoever.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: حسن كالصحيح

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (5/194)

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, pp. 292, 293

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/3/4/40/3
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
436333c4486d7b5789bf367af093c076e9ea90b421e1487d0b28f25686e1e284
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/40/3
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.