The Issue of Disappearance (of the twelfth Imam  عليه السلام from Public Sight — report 8

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hadith

ORIGINAL ARABIC SOURCE TEXT

8ـ عَلِيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ حَنَانِ بْنِ سَدِيرٍ عَنْ مَعْرُوفِ بْنِ خَرَّبُوذَ عَنْ ابي جعفر (عَلَيْهِ السَّلام) قَالَ إِنَّمَا نَحْنُ كَنُجُومِ السَّمَاءِ كُلَّمَا غَابَ نَجْمٌ طَلَعَ نَجْمٌ حَتَّى إِذَا أَشَرْتُمْ بِأَصَابِعِكُمْ وَمِلْتُمْ بِأَعْنَاقِكُمْ غَيَّبَ الله عَنْكُمْ نَجْمَكُمْ فَاسْتَوَتْ بَنُو عَبْدِ الْمُطَّلِبِ فَلَمْ يُعْرَفْ أَيٌّ مِنْ أَيٍّ فَإِذَا طَلَعَ نَجْمُكُمْ فَاحْمَدُوا رَبَّكُمْ.

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

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

8. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Hannan ibn Sadir from Ma‘ruf ibn Kharrabudh from abu Ja’far عليه السلام who has said the following. “We are only like the stars in the heavens. Whenever one star disappears (from sight) another one comes in view until you will point out with your fingers and make a gesture with your necks. Allah will cause your star to disappear from your sight. The descendants of ‘Abd al-Muttalib will all look similar as such that one would not know which is whiCh When your star will reappear then you must give thanks to Allah.”

Source & scholarly assessments

Al-Kafi, vol. 1, book 4, chapter 80, report 8

Open original digital source ↗

Allamah Baqir al-Majlisi · موثق حسن · Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (4/45)

Shaykh Baqir al-Behbudi · صحيح · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī, vol. 1, p. 40

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

Arabic witness SHA-256: 6502204b921888918a57ebe800705e67e1ffbc81d5821b0b4383fa2aa07137fc

Source: Thaqalayn (Stichting Thaqalayn), https://thaqalayn.com/hadith/1/4/80/8. 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.