Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 2

The Book of al-Zakat · Offsetting Loan for Zakat · Volume 3, book 5, chapter 40, Hadith 2

Original Arabic text

2ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ سَعِيدٍ عَنْ أَخِيهِ الْحَسَنِ عَنْ زُرْعَةَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنْ سَمَاعَةَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) قَالَ سَأَلْتُهُ عَنِ الرَّجُلِ يَكُونُ لَهُ الدَّيْنُ عَلَى رَجُلٍ فَقِيرٍ يُرِيدُ أَنْ يُعْطِيَهُ مِنَ الزَّكَاةِ فَقَالَ إِنْ كَانَ الْفَقِيرُ عِنْدَهُ وَفَاءٌ بِمَا كَانَ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ دَيْنٍ مِنْ عَرْضٍ مِنْ دَارٍ أَوْ مَتَاعٍ مِنْ مَتَاعِ الْبَيْتِ أَوْ يُعَالِجُ عَمَلاً يَتَقَلَّبُ فِيهَا بِوَجْهِهِ فَهُوَ يَرْجُو أَنْ يَأْخُذَ مِنْهُ مَالَهُ عِنْدَهُ مِنْ دَيْنِهِ فَلاَ بَأْسَ أَنْ يُقَاصَّهُ بِمَا أَرَادَ أَنْ يُعْطِيَهُ مِنَ الزَّكَاةِ أَوْ يَحْتَسِبَ بِهَا فَإِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ عِنْدَ الْفَقِيرِ وَفَاءٌ وَلاَ يَرْجُو أَنْ يَأْخُذَ مِنْهُ شَيْئاً فَلْيُعْطِهِ مِنْ زَكَاتِهِ وَلاَ يُقَاصَّهُ بِشَيْ‏ءٍ مِنَ الزَّكَاةِ.

Published English translation

2. A number of our people have narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from al-Husayn ibn Sa‘id from his brother al-Hassan from Zur’ah ibn Muhammad from Sama‘ah who has said the following: “I once asked abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), about a man to whom another man owes a certain amount of loan who is poor to whom he wants to pay Zakat. He (the Imam) said, ‘The poor may have something in his possession or potentials, which is equal in value to the amount of loan, such as certain effects like a house, household effects or a certain work that he performs. He (the lender) can offset the amount of Zakat that he owes against the loan that the poor person owes to him. It is not harmful. However, the poor person may not have any of the things mentioned like a house, household effects or a certain work for which he receives payment. He (the lender) cannot offset the amount of Zakat that he owes against the loan that the poor person owes to him; instead the lender must pay Zakat to him and not offset anything.”’

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Shaykh Baqir al-Behbudi: صحيح

Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī, vol. 2, pp. 36, 37

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/3/5/40/2
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
13f83b2e5c35e2c6e700a76f9779ae90f43dff12ee197974d02166459e78b500
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/5/40/2
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.