The Four Books

The Four Books (Arabic: ٱلْكُتُب ٱلْأَرْبَعَة, romanizedal-Kutub al-ʾArbaʿa) are the four canonical hadith collections of Shia Islam. The term is used mostly by Twelver Shias.

Name Collector No. of
hadith
Kitab al-Kafi [a] Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Kulayni al-Razi (329 AH) 16,199
Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih Muhammad ibn Babawayh 9,044
Tahdhib al-Ahkam Shaykh Muhammad Tusi 13,590
Al-Istibsar Shaykh Muhammad Tusi 5,511
Total ahādith 44,344

Shi'a Muslims use different books of hadith from those used by Sunni Muslims,[b] who prize the six major hadith collections. In particular, Twelver Shi'a consider many Sunni transmitters of hadith to be unreliable because many of them took the side of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali instead of only Ali (and the rest of Muhammad's family) and the majority of them were narrated through certain personalities that waged war against Ahlul Bayt or sided with their enemies such as Aisha that fought Ali at Jamal, or Muawiya who did so at Siffin. Hussain (grandson of Muhammad and son of Ali ibn Abi Talib) was martyred at the Battle of Karbala.[2] Shia trust traditions transmitted through the Imams, Muhammad's descendants through Fatima Zahra.[3]

The content of most of the Hadiths in “Four Books” is nearly the same as that in “Six Books”, the Sunni Hadith collections. Only differing in the Chain of transmission in many cases.[3]


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  1. ^ Karimov, N.R., 2019. SOME BRIEF INFORMATION ON AL-SIHAH AL-SITTA. Theoretical & Applied Science, (5), pp.611-620.
  2. ^ Momen, Moojan, Introduction to Shi'i Islam, Yale University Press, 1985, p.28-31
  3. ^ a b Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A young Muslim's guide to the modern world, KAZI Publications, Inc Chicago, IL, 2003, p. 19