Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 6

The Book on Dying People · Another one of the Chapters about the Souls of the Believing People · Volume 3, book 3, chapter 91, Hadith 6

Original Arabic text

6ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ خَالِدٍ عَنِ الْقَاسِمِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ أَحْمَدَ عَنْ يُونُسَ بْنِ ظَبْيَانَ قَالَ كُنْتُ عِنْدَ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) فَقَالَ مَا يَقُولُ النَّاسُ فِي أَرْوَاحِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فَقُلْتُ يَقُولُونَ تَكُونُ فِي حَوَاصِلِ طُيُورٍ خُضْرٍ فِي قَنَادِيلَ تَحْتَ الْعَرْشِ فَقَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ الْسَّلام) سُبْحَانَ الله الْمُؤْمِنُ أَكْرَمُ عَلَى الله مِنْ أَنْ يَجْعَلَ رُوحَهُ فِي حَوْصَلَةِ طَيْرٍ يَا يُونُسُ إِذَا كَانَ ذَلِكَ أَتَاهُ مُحَمَّدٌ (صلّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِه) وَعَلِيٌّ وَفَاطِمَةُ وَالْحَسَنُ وَالْحُسَيْنُ (عَلَيْهِم الْسَّلام) وَالْمَلاَئِكَةُ الْمُقَرَّبُونَ (عَلَيْهِم الْسَّلام) فَإِذَا قَبَضَهُ الله عَزَّ وَجَلَّ صَيَّرَ تِلْكَ الرُّوحَ فِي قَالَبٍ كَقَالَبِهِ فِي الدُّنْيَا فَيَأْكُلُونَ وَيَشْرَبُونَ فَإِذَا قَدِمَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْقَادِمُ عَرَفُوهُ بِتِلْكَ الصُّورَةِ الَّتِي كَانَتْ فِي الدُّنْيَا.

Published English translation

6. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Muhammad ibn Khalid from al-Qasim ibn Muhammad from al-Husayn ibn Ahmad from Yunus ibn Zabyan who has said the following: ’Once I was with abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), and he asked, ‘What do people say about the spirits of the believers?’ I then replied, ‘They say that they live in the craws of green birds in chandlers in paradise under the Throne.’ Abu ‘Abd Allah (a.s.), then said, ‘Allah is free of all defects. A believer is highly respected in the sight of Allah. He does not place them (the spirits of believers) in the craws of birds. O Yunus, when that (death) comes Muhammad, Ali, Fatimah, al- Hassan and al-Husayn, ‘Alayhim al-Salam, and the angels of high ranks before Allah come. When Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Glorious, causes him to die, the spirit is transferred to a form like his form in the world. They (spirits) eat and drink. When a new coming soul (spirit) joins them, they recognize him through his form which he had in the world.’”

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 (14/225)

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/3/3/91/6
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
7958f58df6662c4044aa67246d39673a80bbe0475fd4c062bafb72dab61742b0
source File Hash
c1963d9c5ae304c52e135f93552237f5ab876e0b12123bbc2d513a90dbd36cc2
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/3/91/6
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.