Hadith 5

(The book) ‘Al Kafi’ – from Muhammad Bin Yahya, from Muhammad Bin Al-Husayn, from Musa Bin Sa’dan, from Abdullah Bin Al Qasim, from Amro Bin Abu Al Miqdam who said, ‘Abu Ja’far-asws said to me: ‘The first entering you enter upon (indulging in), learn the truthfulness before the Hadeeth’’. [4]
Explanation – ‘Learn the truthfulness’ – i. e. , it’s rules, like permission of the transmission with the meaning and attribution of the Hadeeth, the ones taken from one of the Imams-asws to his-asws forefathers-asws, or to Rasool-Allah-saww, or disparity of the Hadeeth and examples of that, or learning it could be a metaphor of working with it and being tutored upon it upon the problematic issues, or the intent with the learning its aspects, and necessitating it and prohibition of neglecting it. ‘Before the Hadeeth’ – i. e. , before hearing the Hadeeth from us-asws, and it’s reporting, and it’s exactness, and its transmission, and this is appropriate of his firstly entering into it, for he would be intending to listen to the Hadeeth from him-asws, and he would not hear it afterwards. This is what I (Majlisi) understand. And it is said, ‘There are aspects in it based upon that the intent with the Hadeeth is the talk (discussion/narration), not the Hadeeth in the meaning of the idiom. The first is that the intent is the pondering regarding the speech in order to know the truthfulness regarding what is being spoken with, and it’s example are the words of Amir Al-Momineen-asws: ‘The tongue of the intellectual is behind his heart, and the heart of the idiot is behind his tongue’. It means that the intellectual learns the truthfulness and the lies first, and he ponders regarding what he is to say, then he says what is the truth and the right, while the idiot speaks and he says without pondering and thinking, so he speaks with the lies and the falsehood a lot. The second is that ‘before’ is not related to you before you learn, but it would be instead of his words in the first entering. The third is that ‘before’ is related with ‘said’, i. e. , he-asws said initiating before the talking with another speech, learn. The fourth is that the meaning could be, ‘learn the truthfulness before learning the etiquettes of the talking from the rules of Arabic grammar, and the rhetoric, and the eloquence and it’s like, and it is not hidden after all, especially the second and third, and the fact that what we have mentioned is clearer and more appropriate.