Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

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

Original Arabic text

4ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ يُونُسَ عَنِ ابْنِ مُسْكَانَ عَنِ ابْنِ أَبِي يَعْفُورٍ قَالَ سَأَلْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) عَنِ الرَّجُلِ لاَ يَدْرِي رَكْعَتَيْنِ صَلَّى أَمْ أَرْبَعاً قَالَ يَتَشَهَّدُ وَيُسَلِّمُ ثُمَّ يَقُومُ فَيُصَلِّي رَكْعَتَيْنِ وَأَرْبَعَ سَجَدَاتٍ يَقْرَأُ فِيهِمَا بِفَاتِحَةِ الْكِتَابِ ثُمَّ يَتَشَهَّدُ وَيُسَلِّمُ وَإِنْ كَانَ صَلَّى أَرْبَعاً كَانَتْ هَاتَانِ نَافِلَةً وَإِنْ كَانَ صَلَّى رَكْعَتَيْنِ كَانَتْ هَاتَانِ تَمَامَ الأرْبَعِ وَإِنْ تَكَلَّمَ فَلْيَسْجُدْ سَجْدَتَيِ السَّهْوِ.

Published English translation

4. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn ’Isma‘il from Yunus from ibn Muskan from ibn abu Ya‘fur who has said the following: “I once asked abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), about a man who does not know if he has performed two Rak‘at or four. He (the Imam) said, ‘He says Tashahhud (testimonies of belief) and the phrase of offering greeting of peace, then stands up to perform two Rak‘at and four Sujud (prostrations) in which he reads al-Fatihah al-Kitab, thereafter says Tashahhud (testimonies of belief) and the phrase of offering greeting of peace. If he has, in fact, performed four Rak‘at, the two Rak‘at are optional; but if they were two Rak‘at, then these two Rak‘at complete the four, and if he has spoken something other than what is part of Salah (prayer) he performs two Sajdah (prostrations) because of mistake.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: صحيح

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (15/195)

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/3/4/40/4
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
e505e4cf0c6d9ea41ced2cf10f47bc1f84d4e7bca72fa1d664a015ad716dd3b3
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/40/4
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.