The Issue of Disappearance (of the twelfth Imam  عليه السلام from Public Sight — report 17

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hadith

ORIGINAL ARABIC SOURCE TEXT

17ـ وَبِهَذَا الاسْنَادِ عَنِ الْوَشَّاءِ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحَسَنِ عَنْ أَبَانِ بْنِ تَغْلِبَ قَالَ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) كَيْفَ أَنْتَ إِذَا وَقَعَتِ الْبَطْشَةُ بَيْنَ الْمَسْجِدَيْنِ فَيَأْرِزُ الْعِلْمُ كَمَا تَأْرِزُ الْحَيَّةُ فِي جُحْرِهَا وَاخْتَلَفَتِ الشِّيعَةُ وَسَمَّى بَعْضُهُمْ بَعْضاً كَذَّابِينَ وَتَفَلَ بَعْضُهُمْ فِي وُجُوهِ بَعْضٍ قُلْتُ جُعِلْتُ فِدَاكَ مَا عِنْدَ ذَلِكَ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَقَالَ لِي الْخَيْرُ كُلُّهُ عِنْدَ ذَلِكَ ثَلاثاً.

Arabic source transcription, not a back-translation. Text nodes are preserved without spelling or diacritic changes. Printed-edition comparison is pending.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

17. through the same chain of narrators it is narrated from al-Washsha’ from Ali ibn al-Hassan from Aban ibn Taghlib who said: “How would it be with you when an large scale attack would take place between the two mosques. Thereafter, knowledge will become obscure as the snake goes in to its hiding place. The Shi‘a will hold differences and one group will call the group liars and one group will spit onto the faces of the aother.” I then said, “May I be sacrificed for you, there will be nothing good from that!” He عليه السلام said to me, “All goodness will be there.” He said it three times.

Source & scholarly assessments

Al-Kafi, vol. 1, book 4, chapter 80, report 17

Open original digital source ↗

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi · صحيح · Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (4/51)

Shaykh Baqir al-Behbudi · لم يخرجه · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī

Digital-source transcription only. The recorded assessment is attributed to the named scholar; it does not establish absolute historical certainty.

Arabic witness SHA-256: b96da14efaaec5f0d621fd1236e855d2a2358b80536c85c7f005055a65e71767

Source: Thaqalayn (Stichting Thaqalayn), https://thaqalayn.com/hadith/1/4/80/17. Al-Kafi by al-Kulayni. English translation attributed by the digital catalogue to Muhammad Sarwar. CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. No endorsement implied.