Traditions negat­ing his veracity and confirming his...

Traditions negat­ing his veracity and confirming his unreliability have been narrated from the (A).20 Al-Sayyid Al Khui’s tawthiq of Abu al-Jarud, due to his presence in the chains of the narrators of Kamil al-ziyarat, the veracity of whose chains of narrators has been testified by Muhammad ibn Qulawayh,21 is not correct, because the negation of his veracity precedes his establish­ment as a thiqah; the traditions condemning him were present before his being considered a thiqah by Ibn Qulawayh.

Apart from this, his acceptance of the veracity of all the narrators of Kamil Al-Ziyarat is not correct, and the words of Ibn Qulawayh do not convey such a claim.

Whatever the case may be, al-Mamaqani, after mentioning the traditions negating Abu al-Jarud's veracity, observes: "This person has in no way been considered a thiqah; rather he has strongly been condemned and considered unreliable in al-Waitzah and other books."'22 As to the fact that some thiqah narrators narrated from him, this does not necessitate his being considered thiqah, as expressly stated by al-Sayyid al-Khui’s concerning Abu al-Jarud.23 As to al-Kafi, which was compiled by al-Shaykh al-Kulayni - may God have mercy on him - during a span of twenty years, we do not accept the authenticity of all its traditions, because some of them are considered daif, mursal, etc., due to faults in their chains of transmis­sion.

It also contains traditions which do not agree with the Qur'an and others which are defective from the viewpoint of text. Among such traditions are those which entail the occurrence of tahrif.

Al-Kulayni, moreover, has placed a number of such traditions under the head "al-nawadir," wherein he records nadir and shadhdh tradi­tions.'24 Thus al-Kafi, in the eyes of the Imamiyyah, is not like Sahih al­Bukhari and Sahih Muslim and other such compilations of traditions in the eyes of the Ahl al-Sunnah, who accept the authenticity of all the traditions contained in these books, even if they are opposed to the Qur'an, going to the extent of saying: السُنَّة قاضية على الكناب 'The Sunnah judges the Qur'an.25 If one refers to Mir 'at ul uqul(a commentary on al-Kafi) of al­`Allamah al-Majlisi, one will observe what al-Majlisi has mentioned about the traditions of al-Kafi concerning their chains of transmission, and will see that he has classed a large number of them as daif, mursal, or as possessing some other defect.