Hadith collections / Al-Kafi

Al-Kafi · Hadith 4

The Book about people with Divine Authority · The Jinns Come to the Imam for Religious Instructions and for Dealing with their Affairs · Volume 1, book 4, chapter 98, Hadith 4

Original Arabic text

4ـ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ بْنِ أَبِي الْبِلادِ عَنْ سَدِيرٍ الصَّيْرَفِيِّ قَالَ أَوْصَانِي أَبُو جَعْفَرٍ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) بِحَوَائِجَ لَهُ بِالْمَدِينَةِ فَخَرَجْتُ فَبَيْنَا أَنَا بَيْنَ فَجِّ الرَّوْحَاءِ عَلَى رَاحِلَتِي إِذَا إِنْسَانٌ يَلْوِي ثَوْبَهُ قَالَ فَمِلْتُ إِلَيْهِ وَظَنَنْتُ أَنَّهُ عَطْشَانُ فَنَاوَلْتُهُ الادَاوَةَ فَقَالَ لِي لا حَاجَةَ لِي بِهَا وَنَاوَلَنِي كِتَاباً طِينُهُ رَطْبٌ قَالَ فَلَمَّا نَظَرْتُ إِلَى الْخَاتَمِ إِذَا خَاتَمُ ابي جعفر (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَقُلْتُ مَتَى عَهْدُكَ بِصَاحِبِ الْكِتَابِ قَالَ السَّاعَةَ وَإِذَا فِي الْكِتَابِ أَشْيَاءُ يَأْمُرُنِي بِهَا ثُمَّ الْتَفَتُّ فَإِذَا لَيْسَ عِنْدِي أَحَدٌ قَالَ ثُمَّ قَدِمَ أَبُو جَعْفَرٍ (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) فَلَقِيتُهُ فَقُلْتُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ رَجُلٌ أَتَانِي بِكِتَابِكَ وَطِينُهُ رَطْبٌ فَقَالَ يَا سَدِيرُ إِنَّ لَنَا خَدَماً مِنَ الْجِنِّ فَإِذَا أَرَدْنَا السُّرْعَةَ بَعَثْنَاهُمْ. وَفِي رِوَايَةٍ أُخْرَى قَالَ إِنَّ لَنَا أَتْبَاعاً مِنَ الْجِنِّ كَمَا أَنَّ لَنَا أَتْبَاعاً مِنَ الانْسِ فَإِذَا أَرَدْنَا أَمْراً بَعَثْنَاهُمْ.

Published English translation

4. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from Muhammad ibn al-Husayn from Ibrahim ibn abu al-Balad from Sadir al-Sayrafi who has said the following. “Abu Ja‘far (a.s.) asked me to help him in a few things in Maina. I left and when reached fajj al-Rawha’ a man waved to me with his cloths. The narrator has said that I turned to him and I though he was thirsty. I offered the cup but he declined saying, “I do not need it.” He gave a letter with its ink still not dried up. The narrator has said that when looked at it, it had the seal of abu Ja‘far (a.s.) on. I asked him when were you in the presence of abu Ja‘far (a.s.)?” He said, “Just now I was in his presence.” In the letter there were few things that he had commanded me to do. When looked around there was no one with me.” The narrator has said that then I went to meet abu Ja‘far (a.s.) and said, may Allah take my soul in service for your cause, a man came to me with your letter the ink of which was not yet dried up.” He said, “O Sadir, we servants from Jinns. When we would need a thing to happen quickly we send them to do it.”

Narrator and transmission

See the transmission information preserved in the original source text.

Attributed scholarly assessments

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi: حسن وآخره مرسل

Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (4/294)

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/1/4/98/4
license
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
edition
Al-Kafi, volume 1, 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
eded96e894a1007f0720358fa51e5fd1d3e5e0ef0f2f1bba45218c19e46e24af
source File Hash
30bc491c96eb3860f3d3dfe97f46353a88858d7cb9e06d662ebdd04252ac5a3e
original Source Url
https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/1/4/98/4
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.
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.