Here is what Shaykh Abu Zahra wrote in his book on Imam Jafar.
Muhammad ibn Ya‘qūb al-Kulaynī has ascribed a ahadith to Imam Jafar Sadiq (R.A.) that there is an alteration in the Quran but such an attribution cannot be accepted towards him. Even serious and devoted scholars of the Twelver jurisprudence have denied any such reference and its relation to Imam Jafar Sadiq (R.A.). Many Scholars, who have rejected this reference are not the ordinary ones but the learned and august jurists of the Twelver sect e.g. Sharif al-Murtaza and his disciple Shaykh al-Tūsī.
The book “Al-Kafi” compiled by al Kulayni (Muhammad Ibn Yaqub Al-Kulayni) is among the top four most important ahadith books of the Twelver Shia sect. Kulayni’s book contains narrations on Ilm-al-Jafr as arithmomancy and below is a narration which explains it detail:
“A number of our people have narrated from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from Ali ibn
al-Hakam from al-Husayn ibn abu ‘Ala’ who has said that he heard abu ‘Abd
Allah, recipient of divine supreme covenant, say the following:
“With me is the white Jafr.” I (the narrator) then asked the Imam, recipient of divine supreme covenant, “What is in it?” The Imam said, “In it there are the psalms of David, the Torah of Moses, the Gospel of Jesus, the Books of Abraham, the laws that explain the lawful and unlawful matters”
Kulayni has described two types of arithmomancy. They are referred to as “Jafr and Jami’ah. The first type includes what is written on the skin of the goat while the second covers what is written on the skin of the ram.”
(Al-Turayhi, Fakhr al-Din b. Muhammad `Ali Ibn Ahmad. Majma` al¬ Bahrayn; Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Saffār: Basā'ir al-Darajāt 165)
These narrations especially about Ilm-al-Jafr are mostly the references from Kulayni. We will discuss it later in detail why we cannot accept narratives and references from Kulayni. Actually, it was Kulayni who claimed that Imam Jafar (R.A.) said that the current Quran is not in its complete form and is defective but many great scholars like Murtaza and Toosi of the Twelvers sect have rejected this claim. Whatever these great scholars have ascribed to and narrated about Imam Jafar Sadiq (R.A.) is totally in contradiction to what Kulayni has ascribed
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July 24, 2014, 04:47:33 AM