Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 3

The Book on Dying People · Washing a Dead Body · Volume 3, book 3, chapter 18, Hadith 3

Original Arabic text

3ـ عِدَّةٌ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ عَنِ الْحَسَنِ بْنِ مَحْبُوبٍ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ رِئَابٍ عَنِ الْحَلَبِيِّ قَالَ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) يُغَسَّلُ الْمَيِّتُ ثَلاَثَ غَسَلاَتٍ مَرَّةً بِالسِّدْرِ وَمَرَّةً بِالْمَاءِ يُطْرَحُ فِيهِ الْكَافُورُ وَمَرَّةً أُخْرَى بِالْمَاءِ الْقَرَاحِ ثُمَّ يُكَفَّنُ وَقَالَ إِنَّ أَبِي كَتَبَ فِي وَصِيَّتِهِ أَنْ أُكَفِّنَهُ فِي ثَلاَثَةِ أَثْوَابٍ أَحَدُهَا رِدَاءٌ لَهُ حِبَرَةٌ وَثَوْبٌ آخَرُ وَقَمِيصٌ قُلْتُ وَلِمَ كَتَبَ هَذَا قَالَ مَخَافَةَ قَوْلِ النَّاسِ وَعَصَّبْنَاهُ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ بِعِمَامَةٍ وَشَقَقْنَا لَهُ الأرْضَ مِنْ أَجْلِ أَنَّهُ كَانَ بَادِناً وَأَمَرَنِي أَنْ أَرْفَعَ الْقَبْرَ مِنَ الأرْضِ أَرْبَعَ أَصَابِعَ مُفَرَّجَاتٍ وَذَكَرَ أَنَّ رَشَّ الْقَبْرِ بِالْمَاءِ حَسَنٌ.

Published English translation

3. A number of our people have narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from al-Hassan ibn Mahbub from ibn Ri’ab from al-Halabiy who has narrated the following: “‘Abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), has said that a dead body must be given three Ghusl (baths). One Ghusl (bath) with water mixed with Lotus tree leaves, one Ghusl (bath) with water mixed with camphor, and one Ghusl (bath) with pure water. Thereafter, the dead body must be wrapped in the shroud. He (the Imam) said, ‘My father made a will that required me to shroud him with three pieces of cloth. One piece was a gown which was made in Hibrah, one more piece of cloth, and a shirt.’ I then asked, ‘Why did he say it in his will?’ He (the Imam) said that he (the Imam) did it so that people will have no objection. We then prepared a turban for him. We then dug the soil like a cut in the earth for him because his body was of a large frame. He had commanded me to raise the surface of his grave from the ground by about four inches.’ He (the Imam) mentioned that it is good to sprinkle water on the grave.’”

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 (3/305)

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/3/3/18/3
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
3049d85c98196d7a7b0fd2d7930835998b6b93d57cf28c3c0b73d66a93ae00d7
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/3/18/3
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.