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The Kitāb al-Kāfī is a Twelver Shī‘ah hadīth collection compiled by Muhammad Ya‘qūb Kulaynī. It is divided into three sections: Usūl al-Kāfī, which is concerned with the principle of religion, Furū al-Kāfī, which is concerned with the details of religious law, and Rawdat (or Rauda) al-Kāfī, which is concerned with various religious aspects and includes some writings of the Imāms.[1] In total, al-Kāfī comprises 16,199 narrations[2]; however, as with all Shī‘ah hadīth books, every single hadīth must be individually examined through the science of hadīth.
Contents |
Usūl al-Kāfī
Usūl al-Kāfī (literally, "Sufficing fundamentals") is separated into eight books, over two volumes:
- The Book of Intellect and Ignorance (Kitāb al-‘aql wa al-jahl) - 34 traditions
- The Book of the Merits of Knowledge (Kitāb fadl al-‘ilm) - 176 traditions
- The Book of Divine Unity (Kitāb al-tawhīd) - 212 traditions
- The Book of God's Proofs (Kitāb al-hujjah) - 1015 traditions
- The Book of Belief and Unbelief (Kitāb al-īmān wa al-kufr) - 1609 traditions
- The Book of Supplication (Kitāb al-du‘ā') - 409 traditions
- The Book of the Greatness of the Qur'ān (Kitāb ‘adhamat al-Qur'ān) - 124 traditions
- The Book of Social Ethics (Kitāb al-mu`asharah) - 464 traditions
created moey style
Rawdat al-Kāfī
Rawdat al-Kāfī is the third section. It is a collection of traditions outlining various points of religious interest. Included are letters and speeches of the 12 Holy Imāms.
Furū al-Kāfī
Furū al-Kāfī is one of the ąmost authoritative Shī‘ah hadīth collections, containing 11,156 traditions over eight volumes. It consists of books and sections on jurisprudence and is one of the authoritative reference books for deduction and independent reasoning (ijtihād) from Islāmic law for the Shī‘ah jurisprudents (fiqh).
Furū al-Kāfī
Furū al-Kāfī is one of the ąmost authoritative Shī‘ah hadīth collections, containing 11,156 traditions over eight volumes. It consists of books and sections on jurisprudence and is one of the authoritative reference books for deduction and independent reasoning (ijtihād) from Islāmic law for the Shī‘ah jurisprudents (fiqh).
Authenticity
Of the basic traditions, 5,072 are considered sahīh (sound); 144 are regarded as hasan (good), second category; 1,118 are held to be muwaththaq (trustworthy), third category; 302 are adjudged to be qawī‘ (strong), fourth category; and 9,485 are considered da‘īf (weak), fifth category.[2]
Scholarly remarks
- The author (Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Kulayni) stated in his Preface of Al-Kafi:
“…You wanted to have a book which would be sufficient (for your religious needs) (kafin), which would include all kinds of knowledge (’ilm) of religion, which would be adequate for the student, and to which the teacher might refer. Thus it could be used by anyone who wanted knowledge of religion and of legal practice (’amal) according to only sound traditions (athar) from the truthful ones (the Imams)…Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Gracious, has made the compilation of the book that you had wished for possible. I hope it will prove to be up to your expectations”
- Imam Khomeini (a prominent 20th centry Shī‘ah scholar) said:
"Do you think it is enough [kafi] for our religious life to have its laws summed up in al-Kāfī and then placed upon a shelf?"[3]
Here are some of the Shia most reliable Scholars' sayings about AlKafi :
[1] AlHur Al'amily said " The authors of the Four Books of shia ( Alkafi , AlIstibsaar , AlTahzeeb , Mun La YahDuruHu Alfaqeeh ) have testified that the Hadiths of their books are accurate (saheeh) , firm and well conducted from the roots that all shia agreed on , and if you consider those scholars ( the authors of the four books ) are reliable then you must accept their sayings and their narrations . " [ Alwasa'el , volume 20 , page 104 ]
[2] Sharaf'Deen AbdulHussain Mosawy said : " Alkafi , AlIsTibSaar , AlTahzeeb and Mun La YahduRuHu Alfaqeeh are *MutawaTirah* and agreed on the acuraty of its contents ( the Hadiths ) , and Alkafi is the oldest , greatest , best and the most accurate one of them " . [ The book of AlMuraja'aat , Muraj'ah number 110 ] ..... MutawaTirah = accurate 100% because it was narrated by many narrators .
[3] Muhammad Sadiq AlSaDr said : " Although The Shia are on the unanimity of that The four books ( Alkafi , AlIsTibSaar , AlTahzeeb and Mun La YahduRuHu Alfaqeeh ) are accepted and *all* the narrations in them are accurate ( Saheeh ), But they did not call them by the name ( Sihaah ) like AhlSunnah did ." . [ The Book of shia "Kitab alshia" page 127 ]
[4] AlTabRassy said : " Alkafi among the four shia books ( AlTahzeeb , Alkafi , AlIsTibSar , mun la YahDuruhu Alfaqeeh ) is like the sun among the stars , and who looked fairly would not need to notice the position of the men in the chain of hadiths in this Book , and if you looked fairly you would feel satisfied and sure that the hadiths are firm and accurate . " [ MusTaDrak AlWasa'el , volume 3 , page 532 ]
[5] AlKhomeini said : " Do you think it is enough for our religious life to have its laws summed up in AlKafi and then placed upon a shelf?" [ Al-Hukumah Al-Islamiyyah page 72 ]
Now, I think each and everyone of us is interested to know what this Book ( Alkafi ) contains, the book that made all those Shia Scholars praise it and recommend it, actually even blamed their followers for not applying more effort of studying and research as AlKhomeini said in his book ( Al-Hukumah Al-Islamiyyah page 72 ) !! .
The general idea behind this metaphor is that Khomeini objected to the laziness of many ignorant people of his day who simply kept al-Kafi on their shelf, and ignored or violated it in their daily lives, assuming that they would somehow be saved from Hell just by possessing the book. Khomeini argued that Islamic law should be an integral part of everyday life for the believer, not just a stale manuscript to be placed on a shelf and forgotten. The irony of the allusion is telling; Khomeini implicitly says that al-Kafi (the sufficient) is not kafi (enough) to make you a faithful Muslim or be counted among the righteous, unless you use the wisdom contained within it and act on it.
"لانّ فيها مرسلات وفيها روايات في اسنادها مجاهيل، ومن إشتهر بالوضع والكذب،"
- There is within it (al-Kāfī) traditions, whose chains of narration contain (known) ignorants, liars and fabricators."
- The famous Shī‘ah scholar Shaykh Sadūq didn't believe in the complete authenticity of al-Kāfī.
Khoei points this out in his "Mu‘jam Rijāl al-Hadīth", or "Collection of Men of Narrations", in which he states:
أنّ الشيخ الصدوق : قدّس سرّه : لم يكن يعتقد صحّة جميع مافي الكافي
- "Shaykh as-Sadūq did not regard all of the traditions in al-Kāfī to be Sahih (truthful)."[4]
The scholars have made these remarks, to remind the people that one cannot simply pick the book up, and take whatever they like from it as truthful. Rather, an exhaustive process of authentication must be applied, which leaves the understanding of the book in the hands of the learned. From the Shia point of view, any book other than the Qur'an, as well as individual hadiths or hadith narrators can be objectively questioned and scrutinized as to their reliability, and none - not even the Sahaba - are exempt from this. The main criticism of al-Kafi as the basis for Shia fiqh, comes from extremist Sunni writers who mistakenly argue that finding some weak hadiths in al-Kafi somehow "proves" that the entire Shia school is wrong. Shia Muslims in reality do not rest the basis of their entire faith on the complete authenticity of a hadith book. They also do not automatically accept all hadiths from al-Kafi as sahih without question (as most Sunnis tend to do with Bukhari). The Qur'an is far more important to Islamic belief than any hadith book, and Shia scholars have long pointed this out.
Shia view of al-Kafi relative to other hadith books
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Khoei's opinion was not unique; practically all Shia scholars are adamant that al-Kafi is not 100% authentic, but that it is the best primary hadith book currently available . Unlike Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims do not make any assumptions about the authenticity of a hadith book; Shias believe that there are no "sahih" hadith books that are completely reliable. Hadith books are compiled by fallible people, and thus realistically, they inevitably have a mixture of strong and weak hadiths.
Over a fourth of the hadiths in al-Kafi are Sahih, which is a better proportion than any of the Sunni Sahih books or any of the primary Shia books, if the hadiths are objectively scrutinized according to the science of Ilm ar-Rijal. (As a side note, the "secondary" Shia hadith books, most of which were written during the 1500s under Safavid sponsorship, tend to have much more rigorous research and higher percentage of authentic hadiths than the primary ones written in the 1000s. Some notable examples are Wasael ush-Shia and Haqq al-Yaqeen).
Shia Muslims categorically reject the Sunni assumption that Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are "infallible" books due to their lack of full chains of narration, their posthumous inclusion of weak narrators that both Imams Bukhari and Muslim distrusted during their lifetimes, and their large content of hadiths from politically motivated narrators or false Sahaba who became hypocrites after Muhammad's death (according to the Shia point of view).
But this misconception of the Shia is easily removed with a small amount of un-biased research. Firstly, the Sunni's do not regard these two noble collections as infallible. Secondly, the Sahihain of Imam al- Bukhari and Imam Muslim were compiled before any Shia collection of hadith, around the second hijri century and thus chains of transmission were shorter, leading back to the time of the Prophet. Also every chain of every hadith in these two collections has undergone rigorous investigation in regards to hadith matn (content) and chain of transmission before being classified as Sahih (authentic). And the claim regarding incomplete chains is false. Every hadith in these two collections has a complete chain, otherwise it would not be classified Sahih, because a hadith with a broken chain is called Munqati' (Severed) which is from the category of weak ahadith. The only ahadith that have shortened chains are called ta'liqaat. And these hadith are usually quoted as title headings by Imam al -Bukahri and Imam Muslim and later on these ahadith are mentioned again with their full chains of transmission.
Kulayni himself stated in his preface that he only collected hadiths he thought were important and sufficient for Muslims to know (at a time when many Muslims were illiterate and ignorant of the true beliefs of Islam, and heretical Sufi and gnostic sects were gaining popularity), and he left the verification of these hadiths up to later scholars. Kulayni also states, in reference to hadiths: "whatever (hadith) agrees with the Book of God (the Qur'an), accept it. And whatever contradicts it, reject it" [1]. But one has to consider that this statement is quite naive. As there are bound to be many ahadith that seemingly contradict specific verses of al-Qur'an al-Karim, yet they are authentic. This is beacuse mutawatir (propagated) hadith can abrogate verses of the qQur'an, with conditions of course. This page does not allow room for detail but one can refer to the usul al-fiqh manual, usool al-Shaashi for details.
Thus even the author of al-Kafi never intended for it to be politicized as "infallible", he only compiled it to give sincere advice based on authentic Islamic law (regardless of the soundess of any one particular hadith), and to preserve rare hadiths and religious knowledge in an easily accessible collection for future generations to study.
Neither did the Imams of the al-Sihah al-sitta promote their collections as infallible works, rather they strived, dedicating their entire lives to the preservation of the sayings of the Most Eloquent of Creation Sayyiduna Muhammad al- Mustafa al-Mujtaba al-Habeeb wa al- Tabeeb.
References
- ^ Howard, I. K. A. (1976), "'Al-Kafi' by Al-Kulayni", Al-Serat: A Journal of Islamic Studies 2 (1), http://al-islam.org/al-serat/default.asp?url=kulayni-howard.htm
- ^ a b http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/kafi/1.htm Hadith al-Kafi
- ^ Wilayat al-Faqih: Al-Hukumah Al-Islamiyyah. p.72.
- ^ a b (Arabic reference)
See also
- List of Shi'a books
- Shahr Usul al-Kafi, a commentary on the Usul al-Kafi
- Branches of Religion (Furu al-din)
- Sharif al-Kafi
External links
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