About Usul16
A source-linked library of Shia hadith.
One place to read the Shia hadith collections, look up the narrators, and follow the chains—without ever losing sight of the printed source.
What it is
The Shia hadith tradition runs to tens of thousands of narrations—the Four Books (Al-Kāfī, Man Lā Yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh, Tahdhīb al-Aḥkām, and al-Istibṣār) and centuries of collections after them. Most of it lives in dense scans, ageing websites, and scattered translations, where it's hard to tell how anything on screen relates to the book it came from.
Usul16 brings it together and keeps it connected: the Arabic beside its English, each report beside its chain, every narrator's name beside who they actually were, and all of it beside the volume and page it was printed on.
How to read what you find
The Arabic and the printed edition are the original. The English sits alongside to help you read it, named to its translator. Where we've identified a narrator or mapped a chain, the evidence is shown so you can weigh it yourself.
Nothing here asks you to take its word for it. Whatever you're looking at, the source is one click away.
Where it's going
This is a small project, still early, and built with care rather than haste. The Four Books come first, done properly—clean text, real translations, and narrator profiles you can trust—with Al-Kāfī furthest along. From there, God willing, the same care extends through Biḥār al-Anwār and the wider tradition, one collection at a time. The hope is simply that it keeps growing, and keeps serving.