Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 11

The Book of al-Zakat · Who Can Lawfully Receive Zakat and Who Cannot · Volume 3, book 5, chapter 43, Hadith 11

Original Arabic text

11ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ سَعِيدٍ عَنْ أَخِيهِ الْحَسَنِ عَنْ زُرْعَةَ عَنْ سَمَاعَةَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) قَالَ سَأَلْتُهُ عَنِ الرَّجُلِ يَكُونُ لَهُ الدَّرَاهِمُ يَعْمَلُ بِهَا وَقَدْ وَجَبَ عَلَيْهِ فِيهَا الزَّكَاةُ وَيَكُونُ فَضْلُهُ الَّذِي يَكْسِبُ بِمَالِهِ كَفَافَ عِيَالِهِ لِطَعَامِهِمْ وَكِسْوَتِهِمْ لاَ يَسَعُهُ لأُدُمِهِمْ وَإِنَّمَا هُوَ مَا يَقُوتُهُمْ فِي الطَّعَامِ وَالْكِسْوَةِ قَالَ فَلْيَنْظُرْ إِلَى زَكَاةِ مَالِهِ ذَلِكَ فَلْيُخْرِجْ مِنْهَا شَيْئاً قَلَّ أَوْ كَثُرَ فَيُعْطِيهِ بَعْضَ مَنْ تَحِلُّ لَهُ الزَّكَاةُ وَلْيَعُدْ بِمَا بَقِيَ مِنَ الزَّكَاةِ عَلَى عِيَالِهِ وَلْيَشْتَرِ بِذَلِكَ آدَامَهُمْ وَمَا يُصْلِحُهُمْ مِنْ طَعَامِهِمْ مِنْ غَيْرِ إِسْرَافٍ وَلاَ يَأْكُلْ هُوَ مِنْهُ فَإِنَّهُ رُبَّ فَقِيرٍ أَسْرَفُ مِنْ غَنِيٍّ فَقُلْتُ كَيْفَ يَكُونُ الْفَقِيرُ أَسْرَفَ مِنَ الْغَنِيِّ فَقَالَ إِنَّ الْغَنِيَّ يُنْفِقُ مِمَّا أُوتِيَ وَالْفَقِيرَ يُنْفِقُ مِنْ غَيْرِ مَا أُوتِيَ.

Published English translation

11. A number of our people have narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from al-Husayn ibn Sa‘id from his brother Zur’ah from Sama‘ah who has said the following: “I once asked abu ’Abd Allah (a.s.), about a man who has a certain number of dirham which he uses in business, Zakat has become obligatory on him and his savings are enough for the expenses of his family, like food and clothes but not for cooking curry. It is only for their food and clothes. He (the Imam) said, ‘He waits for the Zakat of his assets, pays from it to the deserving beneficiaries a certain amount. What is left, he spends on his family to buy with it gravy curry for them and what is for their well being and food without excessiveness but he himself must not eat from it; because sometimes poor people act more excessively than affluent ones.’ I then asked, ‘How can that happen?’ He (the Imam) said, ‘Affluent people spend from what they earn, but poor people spend without earning.’”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

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/3/5/43/11
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
ba51db8e4cedf052466fa022cc5ae019060eed0ede190bbe248be5f160d826da
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/5/43/11
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.