Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 16

The Book of Prayer · Performing Salah (Prayer) In One Piece of Cloth, How Much clothing a woman Needs, Salah (prayer) of Naked People and Putting One’s Clothes in a Certain Manner, Garb with a Sash · Volume 3, book 4, chapter 59, Hadith 16

Original Arabic text

16ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ حَمَّادٍ عَنْ حَرِيزٍ عَنْ زُرَارَةَ قَالَ قُلْتُ لأَبِي جَعْفَرٍ (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) رَجُلٌ خَرَجَ مِنْ سَفِينَةٍ عُرْيَاناً أَوْ سُلِبَ ثِيَابُهُ وَلَمْ يَجِدْ شَيْئاً يُصَلِّي فِيهِ فَقَالَ يُصَلِّي إِيمَاءً فَإِنْ كَانَتِ امْرَأَةً جَعَلَتْ يَدَهَا عَلَى فَرْجِهَا وَإِنْ كَانَ رَجُلاً وَضَعَ يَدَهُ عَلَى سَوْأَتِهِ ثُمَّ يَجْلِسَانِ فَيُومِئَانِ إِيمَاءً وَلاَ يَسْجُدَانِ وَلاَ يَرْكَعَانِ فَيَبْدُو مَا خَلْفَهُمَا تَكُونُ صَلاَتُهُمَا إِيمَاءً بِرُءُوسِهِمَا قَالَ وَإِنْ كَانَا فِي مَاءٍ أَوْ بَحْرٍ لُجِّيٍّ لَمْ يَسْجُدَا عَلَيْهِ وَمَوْضُوعٌ عَنْهُمَا التَّوَجُّهُ فِيهِ يُومِئَانِ فِي ذَلِكَ إِيمَاءً رَفْعُهُمَا تَوَجُّهٌ وَوَضْعُهُمَا.

Published English translation

16. 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 a man who sails in a boat while naked or his clothes are looted and does not find anything to perform Salah (prayer) with. He (the Imam) said, ‘He performs Salah (prayer) by making gestures and a woman in such condition places her hand over her vagina, and if a man, he places his hand over his private part. They sit and make gestures and do not perform Sajdah (prostration) or Ruku‘ (bowing down on one’s knees) so their back is exposed. Their Salah (prayer) is by gestures by their heads.’ He (the Imam) said, ‘If they are in water or sea with waves they do not perform Sajdah (prostration) and they are exempt from facing (the direction of al- Qiblah (al-Ka‘bah)). They make gestures: their rising and lowering is gestures.’”

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 (15/307)

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. 313, 314

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/3/4/59/16
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
990584eafa9a9028cf4c59e3affbc11820a526116d2324435a6ece0367b100fa
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/59/16
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.