Long chains in Al-Kafi?

[Ibn Yahya]

I'd like to ask the Shi'ah on this forum why the chains in al-Kafi which was allegedly written before your 12th Imam had even gone into occultation so long. Even if it's to al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-'Askari. And why are there so many inauthentic Ahadith. Couldn't your Mahdi just have gone through the book and improved it by removing all the inauthentic Hadiths?

[Hadrami]

A major problem which I don't think shia realise or maybe ignore is how can Shia believe in any ahadith at all? That would be against the pillar of Shia belief.

Shia say we always need imam who can make no mistake in transmitting the correct belief, but the reality is all shia beliefs were transmitted to them by those who can make mistakes. How can Shia reconcile that contradiction?

[Hani]

Because the later Imams didn't know half the lies attributed to their fathers but the Koufans did, so best narrate from the Koufans than the later Imams.

The average Shia will tell you Taqiyyah or some other unconvinsing excuse.

[omar111]

There are two problems with kafi.
Ancient shia scholars regarded it as 100 percent authentic. Even Kulayni claimed this
“…You wanted to have a book which would be sufficient (for your religious needs) (kafin), which would include all kinds of knowledge (’ilm) of religion, which would be adequate for the student, and to which the teacher might refer. Thus it could be used by anyone who wanted knowledge of religion and of legal practice (’amal)according to only sound traditions (athar) from the truthful ones (the Imams)…Allah, the Most Majestic, the Most Gracious, has made the compilation of the book that you had wished for possible. I hope it will prove to be up to your expectations”
(source: Al-Kulayni in his Preface of Al-Kafi)
But later shia scholars were ashamed of strange stories in kafi, so they tried to evolve an ilm e rijal for these ahadith.

The second problem is shia ilm rijal.Shia have no authentic book of Rijal, all their books are corrupted. And Shia has some strange rules of acceptance of ahadith.
1)To shias,anyone who fought Ali is a kafir,so kharjis are kafir.But kharjis are thiqa ravis in shias
2) If a renowned thiqa narrator narrates from a weak or unknown narrator, some scholars will accept that hadith and some reject it.
3) Imam Jafar narrates ahadith from Prophets but he was not even born then.