RNA – According to Iran Book News Agency (IBNA) in Qom, the Persian translation of the book “Usul al-Kafi” by Hujjat al-Islam Hoseyn Ansarian will be unveiled on Thursday, December 13th at the Shaykh Tusi Hall of the Institute of Islamic Sciences and Islamic Culture located on Mo’allem Street in Qom.
This unveiling ceremony will be held in honour of the translator of this work who is a writer in the field of Islam and Shi’ism. Hujjat al-Islam Ansarian has been active in the compilation and translation of various works for more than a decade.
The author of Usul al-Kafi is Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Ya’qub ibn Ishaq al-Kulayni al-Razi (d. 328 AH/940 CE), he is also known as Thiqat al-Islam al-Kulayni.
Usul al-Kafi is the title of the first part of the three parts of al-Kafi, a major Shi’ah book of hadith. In this part of al-Kafi, we can find hadiths concerning the beliefs of Shi’ahs, the biographies of the Immaculate Imams, and how a Muslim should behave. It contains 3,785 hadiths.
The other two parts of al-Kafi contains hadiths concerning fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and ethical advice.
Since al-Kafi is the only book among the Four Books (the four major hadith books of Shi’ahs) which has addressed the principles of beliefs, it has always been central for Shi’ahs, and this is why it has been published separately. Shi’ah scholars have written several commentaries on it.
It is the most significant source of hadiths for the Shi’ah beliefs. It has frequently been published as a separate book, it has been translated by several people, and numerous commentaries have been written on it.
A speciality of this book is that its author was born at the time of the imamate of Imam Hasan al-Askari and wrote it in during the lesser occultation of Imam al-Mahdi, making it the closest book to the time of the Ahlul-Bayt.
112/978