Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book of al-Zakat · The Reason for Amount of Zakat Levied without the Need to Increase or Decrease · Volume 3, book 5, chapter 3, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى بْنِ عُبَيْدٍ عَنْ يُونُسَ عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ الأحْوَلِ قَالَ سَأَلَنِي رَجُلٌ مِنَ الزَّنَادِقَةِ فَقَالَ كَيْفَ صَارَتِ الزَّكَاةُ مِنْ كُلِّ أَلْفٍ خَمْسَةً وَعِشْرِينَ دِرْهَماً فَقُلْتُ لَهُ إِنَّمَا ذَلِكَ مِثْلُ الصَّلاَةِ ثَلاَثٌ وَثِنْتَانِ وَأَرْبَعٌ قَالَ فَقَبِلَ مِنِّي ثُمَّ لَقِيتُ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) فَسَأَلْتُهُ عَنْ ذَلِكَ فَقَالَ إِنَّ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ حَسَبَ الأمْوَالَ وَالْمَسَاكِينَ فَوَجَدَ مَا يَكْفِيهِمْ مِنْ كُلِّ أَلْفٍ خَمْسَةً وَعِشْرِينَ وَلَوْ لَمْ يَكْفِهِمْ لَزَادَهُمْ قَالَ فَرَجَعْتُ إِلَيْهِ فَأَخْبَرْتُهُ فَقَالَ جَاءَتْ هَذِهِ الْمَسْأَلَةُ عَلَى الإِبِلِ مِنَ الْحِجَازِ ثُمَّ قَالَ لَوْ أَنِّي أَعْطَيْتُ أَحَداً طَاعَةً لأَعْطَيْتُ صَاحِبَ هَذَا الْكَلاَمِ.

Published English translation

4. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa ibn ‘Ubayd from Yunus from abu Ja‘far al-Ahwal who has said the following: “Once an atheist asked me, ‘Why is the amount of zakat twenty- five on every one thousand?’ I replied, ‘It is because Salah (prayer) is of two, three and four Rak‘at.’ He (the narrator) has said, ‘He agreed with me. I then visited abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), and asked him about it.’ He (the Imam) replied, ‘Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Glorious, calculated wealthy and destitute people. He found that twenty-five on every one thousand is enough. If this much did not suffice, He would have increased it.’ I went to the atheist and informed him about it. He said, ‘This answer has come from Hijaz on the back of camel.’ He then said, ‘Were I to obey anyone I would obey the author of this statement.’”

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 (6/20)

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/3/5/3/4
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
b97860c84b75330babcbc13c9c70d0c50f5af18071c4832bb369150fa2bad12a
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/5/3/4
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.