1. Ali ibn Muhammad from Sahl ibn Ziyad and Muhammad ibn Yahya from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Isa all from ibn Mahbub from abu ’Usama from Hisham ibn Salim from Abu Hamza from Abu Ishaq al-Saba'iy from a narrator he deems reliable that he heard Amir al-Mu'minin (as) say: 'After the holy Prophet people become of three kinds. One group went to a divinely well guided scholar. Allah had given him such a high degree of knowledge that made him independent of the knowledge of the others. The second group was the ignorant group, who claimed to have knowledge but in fact they had no knowledge. This was an egotist group. The worldly attractions had made them to lose sight of the truth and to mislead other people. The third group consisted of those people who learned from a divinely guided scholar who taught them for the sake of Allah and for their salvation. It then was obvious that those who claimed (to be scholars while, in fact, they were not scholars) and those who forged certain matters falsely were destroyed.'

Translation: Muhammad Sarwar — attributed by Thaqalayn·The Arabic above is the original.

2. Al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Ash’ari has narrated from Mu‘alla ibn Muhammad from al-Hassan ibn Ali al-Washsha’ from Ahmad ibn ‘A’idh from Abu Khadija Salim ibn Mukram that Abu ‘Abdillah (al-Sadiq) (as) said: 'People are of three kinds: A scholar, a student [of knowledge] and a scum.'

Translation: Muhammad Sarwar — attributed by Thaqalayn·The Arabic above is the original.

3. Muhammad ibn Yahya has narrated from ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad from Ali ibn al-Hakam from al-‘Ala’ ibn Razin from Muhammad ibn Muslim from Abu Hamza al-Thumali that Abu ‘Abdillah (al-Sadiq) (as) said to him: "Be a scholar or a student [of knowledge] or love the scholars. Do not become of the fourth group lest you will be destroyed by their hatred."

Translation: Muhammad Sarwar — attributed by Thaqalayn·The Arabic above is the original.

4. Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa from Yunus from Jamil that he heard Abu 'Abdillah (al-Sadiq) (as) say: "People become of three groups: Scholars, students [of knowledge] and scum. We are the scholars, our Shi'a are the students and the rest of the people are scum."

Translation: Muhammad Sarwar — attributed by Thaqalayn·The Arabic above is the original.