Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 5

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 5

Original Arabic text

5ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ وَغَيْرُهُ عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ عَنِ ابْنِ مَحْبُوبٍ عَنِ ابْنِ رِئَابٍ عَنْ أَبِي عُبَيْدَةَ قَالَ سَأَلْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) عَنِ الْقَوْمِ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا يَجْتَمِعُونَ فَتَحْضُرُ الصَّلاَةُ فَيَقُولُ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ تَقَدَّمْ يَا فُلاَنُ فَقَالَ إِنَّ رَسُولَ الله (صلّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) قَالَ يَتَقَدَّمُ الْقَوْمَ أَقْرَؤُهُمْ لِلْقُرْآنِ فَإِنْ كَانُوا فِي الْقِرَاءَةِ سَوَاءً فَأَقْدَمُهُمْ هِجْرَةً فَإِنْ كَانُوا فِي الْهِجْرَةِ سَوَاءً فَأَكْبَرُهُمْ سِنّاً فَإِنْ كَانُوا فِي السِّنِّ سَوَاءً فَلْيَؤُمَّهُمْ أَعْلَمُهُمْ بِالسُّنَّةِ وَأَفْقَهُهُمْ فِي الدِّينِ وَلاَ يَتَقَدَّمَنَّ أَحَدُكُمُ الرَّجُلَ فِي مَنْزِلِهِ وَلاَ صَاحِبَ السُّلْطَانِ فِي سُلْطَانِهِ.

Published English translation

5. Ali ibn Muhammad and others have narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from ibn Mahbub from ibn Ri’ab from abu ‘Ubaydah who has said the following: “I once asked abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), about a people of our companions who come together then Salah (prayer) time comes. Certain ones among them say to the others, ‘O so and so lead.’ He (the Imam) said, ‘The Messenger of Allah has said that the most learned in al-Quran is to lead. If all of them are equally learned in al-Quran, the first to migrate among them, if all are equal in migration, then the oldest among them, if all are equal in age, then the most learned among them in the Sunnah and most learned in religion is to lead. No one of you must lead one in his house or the one with authority in his dominion.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: ضعيف على المشهور

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (5/261)

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/3/4/51/5
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
5d84b0a39c0d7e83ea49748e6e53407143173d26872a7fe3a013a96f783a2bbf
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/51/5
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.