A Critical Assessment of the Hadiths in the Chapter “Along with Faith no Evil Deed will Harm” in al-Kafi

There is a chapter in al-Kafi entitled “along with faith no evil deed will harm, and along with disbelief no good deed will benefit”. It includes six hadiths that imply that evil deeds will cause no harm to the faithful, and good deeds will not benefit the disbelievers. The Quranic verses confirm the latter point but contradict the former one. The authors of this essay intended to resolve this apparent contradiction by examining the text and the transmitters of the hadiths. Only two out of the six hadiths are directly related to the theme of the chapter, of which just one is reliable. On the surface, the hadiths appear to be in contradiction to the Quran, Sunnah and the intellect, which may lead the community of the faithful to corruption. The belief that «along with faith no evil deed will harm» belong to the Morjiite sect which was damned by the Prophet (S) and by his household (A). Perhaps this sect attributed the idea to the Imams (A) in order to authorize their school of thought.