Hadith Understanding Analysis of Destruction of the apparent Shiites by plague in "Al-Kafi"

After the death of the Prophet (pbuh) due to the pretense and hypocrisy of some Muslim-looking people, the Islamic community went astray and the Prophet's (pbuh) family members were deprived of their divine right to lead the Islamic community as a ruler and it caused division among muslims. After that, the Muslims became several groups, among them there were a group of real Shiites following Imam’s way and another group of worldly worshipers and deceived supporters of the caliphs and their associated rulers. Later, due to the many persecutions of the cruel caliphs against the Shiites, orders were issued by the Innocents (as) to make the Shiites taqiyyah; Also, the imams (as) explained some characteristics of the Shiites and prominent Shiites so that people could distinguish the taqiyyah from the hypocrites and prevent the influence of such elements among the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt (as).In a tradition from Kafi's book, it is stated: "One of the prominent characteristics of people who pretended to be Shiites is their death by plague"; While the plague is an epidemic disease and in the event of an outbreak, all the people present in the environment will get sick and few will be safe from its bite; Therefore, attributing the death by plague to the fake Shiites has a rational and conceptual ambiguity. One of the possibilities for solving the intellectual contradiction of this phrase, which was issued with an authentic document from Imam Sadiq (as), is to pay attention to the possibility of the harm of taqiyyah in the hadith. So the cocept of plague may be different from the main and popular meaning of this as a disease.

The present article examines the various types of understanding of the aforementioned hadith, as well as the Isnad and content validity of the tradition, focusing on the question of "what is the main and assumed meaning of the word (plague) in this hadith, and what kind of death is referred to in the phrase (plague, will kill them)" Does it have death and destruction?" It is placed on the scale of deposit measurement and discussed with analytical-critical method.

By arguing with historical and medical evidence, the conceptual contradiction of this phrase was proved with empirical facts, and then, with the approach of structuralist semantics, the real meaning of plague in this phrase was discovered. The findings of the conceptual examination of the phrase in its aspects and lexical frequencies and the comparative examination of its meaning with the verses, traditions and experimental and historical evidence showed that death by plague, which is attributed to the apparent Shiites, represents a death other than illness and means death with war tools such as swords or spears. A lexical examination proved: since "plague" is derived from the three-letter root "ط ع ن" and has a common root with the word "ṭa'īn" which means strike, it is possible that the word "plague will kill them (Yaqtulhom) " has a meaning other than disease and related to its root meaning (strike). In addition, since it is associated with the verb (Yaqtulhom) meaning to be killed, there is a greater possibility that it refers to the strike of a sword, and if the meaning of death by disease is meant, it should be associated with the verb (aṣāba) which means to encounter and be affected by disease. The investigation of the hadith family showed that in the tradition of Nu'mani, who is a contemporary of Kulaini, instead of the word "plague", the word "sword" is used, which fits with the root of the word "plague" in the meaning of "striking". Therefore, in this tradition, plague does not mean disease, but it means being killed by a sword. Examining the verses also showed that the death of prominent Shiites by plague is a nominal death, but in this sense, it cannot be assigned to a specific group; Also, it cannot be a pending death that is assigned to a certain group due to God's anger or test. Therefore, it refers to another type of death that can be assigned to a certain group according to the verses. Narrative analysis also showed that the approach of the hadiths to the plague can only be justified by accepting the meaning of death by a sword strike, and if it means disease, the appearance of the hadiths will have a conceptual contradiction with their inner meaning.

The summary of the findings indicates that in this tradition, the phrase "plague will kill them" means death by plague, which is attributed to the group of Shiites, it is not death due to plague, but the imam means death due to the strike of a sword, spear or it is any type of war tool and indirectly refers to the victory of the Shias over their enemies or the final victory of the truth against the falsehood and the destruction of the oppressors.