Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 8

The Book of Prayer · The Optional Salah (prayer) · Volume 3, book 4, chapter 84, Hadith 8

Original Arabic text

8ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْحَسَنِ عَنْ سَهْلٍ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَبِي نَصْرٍ قَالَ قُلْتُ لأَبِي الْحَسَنِ (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) إِنَّ أَصْحَابَنَا يَخْتَلِفُونَ فِي صَلاَةِ التَّطَوُّعِ بَعْضُهُمْ يُصَلِّي أَرْبَعاً وَأَرْبَعِينَ وَبَعْضُهُمْ يُصَلِّي خَمْسِينَ فَأَخْبِرْنِي بِالَّذِي تَعْمَلُ بِهِ أَنْتَ كَيْفَ هُوَ حَتَّى أَعْمَلَ بِمِثْلِهِ فَقَالَ أُصَلِّي وَاحِدَةً وَخَمْسِينَ ثُمَّ قَالَ أَمْسِكْ وَعَقَدَ بِيَدِهِ الزَّوَالَ ثَمَانِيَةً وَأَرْبَعاً بَعْدَ الظُّهْرِ وَأَرْبَعاً قَبْلَ الْعَصْرِ وَرَكْعَتَيْنِ بَعْدَ الْمَغْرِبِ وَرَكْعَتَيْنِ قَبْلَ عِشَاءِ الآخِرَةِ وَرَكْعَتَيْنِ بَعْدَ الْعِشَاءِ مِنْ قُعُودٍ تُعَدَّانِ بِرَكْعَةٍ مِنْ قِيَامٍ وَثَمَانِيَ صَلاَةَ اللَّيْلِ وَالْوَتْرَ ثَلاَثاً وَرَكْعَتَيِ الْفَجْرِ وَالْفَرَائِضَ سَبْعَ عَشْرَةَ فَذَلِكَ أَحَدٌ وَخَمْسُونَ.

Published English translation

8. Muhammad ibn al-Hassan has narrated from Sahl from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from ibn abu Nasr who has said the following: “I once said to abu al-Hassan (a.s.), that our people have differences about optional Salah (prayer). Certain ones among them say it is forty-four and others perform fifty. Please tell me about what you perform and how is it, so I can do similarly. He (the Imam) said, ‘I perform fifty-one Rak‘at.’ He (the Imam) then said, ‘Hold on to it.’ He (the Imam) counted with his hand saying, ‘Zawal (declining of the sun toward the west at noontime) is eight. There are four after al-Dhuhr, four before al-‘Asr, two after al-Maghrib, two before al-‘Isha’, two after al-‘Isha’ in a sitting position which are counted as one Rak‘at in a standing position. There are eight Rak‘at of nightly Salah (prayer), three of al-witr and two at dawn. Obligatory Salah (prayer) is seventeen Rak‘at and this becomes fifty-one Rak‘at.’”

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 (5/399)

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/3/4/84/8
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
2e50e2931292e3d68b7dceb4b55df962903e411af7d99069aec5ab870bf1f97b
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/84/8
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.