Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 3

The Book of al-Zakat · A Person’s Performing Hajj and so on with Zakat He Has Received · Volume 3, book 5, chapter 38, Hadith 3

Original Arabic text

3ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنِ ابْنِ فَضَّالٍ عَنْ مَرْوَانَ بْنِ مُسْلِمٍ عَنِ ابْنِ بُكَيْرٍ عَنْ عُبَيْدِ بْنِ زُرَارَةَ قَالَ سَأَلْتُ أَبَا عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) عَنْ رَجُلٍ أَخْرَجَ زَكَاةَ مَالِهِ أَلْفَ دِرْهَمٍ فَلَمْ يَجِدْ مَوْضِعاً يَدْفَعُ ذَلِكَ إِلَيْهِ فَنَظَرَ إِلَى مَمْلُوكٍ يُبَاعُ فِيمَنْ يُرِيدُهُ فَاشْتَرَاهُ بِتِلْكَ الألْفِ الدِّرْهَمِ الَّتِي أَخْرَجَهَا مِنْ زَكَاتِهِ فَأَعْتَقَهُ هَلْ يَجُوزُ لَهُ ذَلِكَ قَالَ نَعَمْ لاَ بَأْسَ بِذَلِكَ قُلْتُ فَإِنَّهُ لَمَّا أَنْ أُعْتِقَ وَصَارَ حُرّاً اتَّجَرَ وَاحْتَرَفَ وَأَصَابَ مَالاً ثُمَّ مَاتَ وَلَيْسَ لَهُ وَارِثٌ فَمَنْ يَرِثُهُ إِذَا لَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُ وَارِثٌ قَالَ يَرِثُهُ الْفُقَرَاءُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الَّذِينَ يَسْتَحِقُّونَ الزَّكَاةَ لأَنَّهُ إِنَّمَا اشْتُرِيَ بِمَالِهِمْ.

Published English translation

3. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from ibn Faddal, from Marwan ibn Muslim from ibn Bukayr from ’Ubayd ibn Zurarah who has said the following: “I once asked abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), about a man who wants to pay Zakat of his asset which is one thousand dirham but cannot find a deserving beneficiary. He then sees a slave for sale, buys him with those thousand dirhams, and sets him free. Was his act permissible? He (the Imam) said, ‘Yes, it is permissible and it is not harmful.’ I then said that when the slave is free he works in business and earns a great wealth; then he dies without anyone to inherit legally his legacy. Who will inherit his legacy? He (the Imam) said, ‘The poor believers who are deserving beneficiaries of Zakat inherit him, because he was bought with their asset.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: ضعيف

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (16/104)

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. 2, p. 36

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/3/5/38/3
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
05f11373008e19ef5d6c79304a36c7b8574e32f8ab61deaede09bf28e4013041
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/5/38/3
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.