Kitab al-Kafi


Al-Kafi is a hadith collection of the Twelver italic=unset tradition, compiled in the first half of the 10th century CE by italic=unset. It is one of the Four Books in Twelver Shi'i Islam.
It is divided into three sections: Uṣūl al-Kāfī, dealing with epistemology, theology, history, ethics, supplication, and the italic=unset; Furūʿ al-Kāfī, which is concerned with practical and legal issues; and Rawdat, which includes miscellaneous traditions, many of which are lengthy letters and speeches transmitted from the imams. In total, al-Kāfī comprises 16,199 narrations. It reportedly took him twenty years to finish the book.

Contents

''Usul al-Kafi''

The first eight books of al-Kāfī are commonly referred to as Uṣūl al-Kāfī, Uṣūl meaning 'Fundamental'. The first typeset edition of the al-Kāfī, which was published in eight volumes, placed Uṣūl al-kāfī in the first two volumes. Generally speaking, Uṣūl al-kāfī contains traditions that deal with epistemology, theology, history, ethics, supplication, and the italic=unset.
ChaptersTraditionsDescriptions
Kitāb al-ʿaql wal jahlThe Book of Intellect and Ignorance36 traditions
Kitāb faḍl al-ʿilmThe Book of Knowledge and its Merits176 traditions
Kitāb at-tawḥīdThe Book of God and his Oneness212 traditions
Kitāb al-ḥujjahThe Book of Divine Guidance1015 traditions
Kitāb al-īmān wal kufrThe Book of Belief and Unbelief1609 traditions
Kitāb ad-duʿāʾThe Book of Supplication409 traditions
Kitāb ʿadhamat al-QurʾānThe Book of the Qurʾān and its Merits124 Traditions
Kitāb al-muʿāsharahThe Book of Social Intercourse464 traditions

''Furūʿ al-Kāfī''

Books 9 through 34 are referred to as Furūʿ al-Kāfī and are found in volumes three through seven of the first typeset edition. Furūʿ al-Kāfī contains traditions that deal predominantly with practical and legal issues.
Chapters
The Book of Purity
The Book of Menstruation
The Book of Funeral Rites
The Book of Prayer
The Book of Charity
The Book of Fasting
The Book of Ḥajj
The Book of Jihād
The Book of Commerce
The Book of Marriage
The Book of Animal Sacrifice upon the Birth of a Child
The Book of Divorce
The Book of Emancipation
The Book of Hunting
The Book of Slaughtering
The Book of Food
The Book of Drink
The Book of Clothing, Beautification, and Honor
The Book of Domesticated Animals
The Book of Testaments
The Book of Inheritance
The Book of Capital and Corporal Punishments
The Book of Restitution and Blood Money
The Book of Testimonies and Depositions
The Book of Adjudication and Legal Precedents
The Book of Oaths, Vows, and Penances

''Rawdat al-Kāfī''

The final book stands alone as Rawdat or Rawḍah al-Kāfī, which is found in volume eight of the first typeset edition. Rawḍah al-Kāfī contains nearly 600 miscellaneous traditions, many of which are lengthy letters and speeches, not arranged in any particular order.
Title
The Book of Miscellanea – literally a garden from which one can pick many kinds of flowers

Authenticity

Most italic=unset scholars do not make any assumptions about the authenticity of a hadith book. Most believe that there are no ṣaḥīḥ 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. Kulaynī himself stated in his preface that he only collected hadiths he thought were important and sufficient for Muslims to know, and he left the verification of these hadiths up to later scholars.
According to the Imami scholar italic=unset, known as italic=unset, who examined the asanād or the chains of transmission of al-Kāfi traditions, 5,072 are considered ṣaḥīḥ; 144 are regarded as ḥasan, second category; 1,118 are held to be muwathaq, third category; 302 are adjudged to be qawi and 9,485 traditions which are categorized as ḍaʿīf.

Scholarly remarks

The author, italic=unset, stated in his preface to Al-Kafi:
Imam Khomeini said:
The general idea behind this metaphor is that Khomeini objected to the laziness of many ignorant people 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-Kāfī is not kafi to make one a faithful Muslim or be counted among the righteous, unless one uses the wisdom contained within it and acts on it.
italic=unset scholar italic=unset did not 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:
Scholars have made such 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 italic=unset point of view, any book other than the italic=unset, as well as individual hadiths or hadith narrators can be objectively questioned and scrutinized as to their reliability.

Shia view of ''al-Kafi'' relative to other hadith books

Kulaynī stated in his preface that he only collected hadiths he thought were important and sufficient for Muslims to know, and he left the verification of these hadiths up to later scholars. Kulaynī also states, in reference to hadiths generally:
The author of al-Kāfi never intended for it to be politicized as "infallible", but compiled it to give sincere advice based on Islamic law, and to preserve rare hadiths and religious knowledge in an easily accessible collection for future generations to study.
Al-Kāfi is the most comprehensive collection of traditions from the formative period of Islamic scholarship. It has been held in the highest esteem by generation after generation of Muslim scholars. italic=unset extolled it as "one of the greatest and most beneficial of Shia books". italic=unset and italic=unset have said, "No book has served the Shia as it has." The father of ʿAllāmah al Majlisī said, "Nothing like it has been written for Islam."

Commentaries