Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book of Prayer · Who Is an Undesirable Leader in Salah (prayer)? Can a Slave Lead Salah (prayer)? Who Is Most Rightful to Lead Salah (prayer) · Volume 3, book 4, chapter 51, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ حَمَّادٍ عَنْ حَرِيزٍ عَنْ زُرَارَةَ عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) قَالَ قُلْتُ لَهُ الصَّلاَةُ خَلْفَ الْعَبْدِ فَقَالَ لاَ بَأْسَ بِهِ إِذَا كَانَ فَقِيهاً وَلَمْ يَكُنْ هُنَاكَ أَفْقَهُ مِنْهُ قَالَ قُلْتُ أُصَلِّي خَلْفَ الأعْمَى قَالَ نَعَمْ إِذَا كَانَ لَهُ مَنْ يُسَدِّدُهُ وَكَانَ أَفْضَلَهُمْ قَالَ وَقَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) لاَ يُصَلِّيَنَّ أَحَدُكُمْ خَلْفَ الْمَجْذُومِ وَالأبْرَصِ وَالْمَجْنُونِ وَالْمَحْدُودِ وَوَلَدِ الزِّنَا وَالأعْرَابِيُّ لاَ يَؤُمُّ الْمُهَاجِرِينَ.

Published English translation

4. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Hammad from Hariz from Zurarah who has said the following: “I once asked abu Ja‘far (a.s.), about performing Salah (prayer) behind a slave. He (the Imam) said, ‘It is not an offense if he has good understanding of fiqh (Islamic laws) and there is no one excelling him in fiqh (Islamic laws). He (the narrator) has said that he then asked, ‘Can I perform Salah (prayer) behind a blind man?’ He (the Imam) said, ‘Yes, if there is someone who shows him the direction and he is more excellent than others present.’ He (the Imam) then said, ‘’Amir al-Mu’minin (a.s.), has said, “No one of you must perform Salah (prayer) behind one suffering from leprosy, an insane man, one punished by law, one born of wedlock, behind a desert dwelling Arab and the immigrant (drifting) must not lead Salah (prayer)””’

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 (15/260)

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. 303

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/3/4/51/4
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
ded9ae0bd3e4aeecfceef5f33454b0ffd87c58fac4a911baee72e7c7b0797fdd
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/51/4
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.