K - CHAPTER ON KINDS OF PEOPLE

Kitab Al-Kafi

Translated By

Muhammad Sarwar

Part 2

The Book on Virtue of Knowledge

Chapter 3
Chapter on Kinds of People

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H 53, Ch. 3, h 1

Ali ibn Muhammad from Sahl ibn Ziyad and Muhammad ibn Yahya from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Isa all from ibn Mahbub from abu ’Usama from Hisham ibn Salim from abu Hamza from abu Ishaq al-Sabay‘i from one who narrated it from a reliable source from Imam Ali (a.s.) who has said the following.
“After the holy Prophet people become of three kinds. One group went to a divinely well guided scholar. Allah had given him such a high degree of knowledge that made him independent of the knowledge of the others. The second group was the ignorant group, who claimed to have knowledge but in fact they had no knowledge. This was an egotist group. The worldly attractions had made them to lose sight of the truth and to mislead other people. The third group consisted of those people who learned from a divinely guided scholar who taught them for the sake of Allah and for their salvation. It then was obvious that those who claimed (to be scholars while, in fact, they were not scholars) and those who forged certain matters falsely were destroyed.”

H 54, Ch. 3, h 2

Al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Ash’ari has narrated from Mu‘alla ibn Muhammad from al-Hassan ibn Ali al-Washsha’ from Ahmad ibn ‘A’idh from abu Khadija Salim ibn Mukram from abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) who has said the following.
“People are of three kinds: The scholars, the learning group and the garbled ones.”

H 55, Ch. 3, h 3

Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad from Ali ibn al-Hakam from al-‘Ala’ ibn Razin from Muhammad ibn Muslim from abu Hamza al-Thumali who has said the following.
“Abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) said this. ‘It is narrated from Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) who has said, “Be a scholar or a learning person or love the scholars. Do not become of the fourth group lest you will be destroyed by their hatred.’”

H 56, Ch. 3, h 4

Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Yunus from Jamil who has said the following.
“I heard Imam abu ‘Abdallah (a.s.) saying, ‘People become of three groups: Scholars, those who learn and garbled ones. We are the scholars. Our followers are the ones who learn. The rest of the people are garbled ones.’”