Extraction and Classification of Medical Narratives of the Book “Al-Kafi”, According to Authentication

Background: the precious book “al-kafi” written by seghat ul-islam kolaini, is one of the four valuable shia narrative books. “kolaini” is one of the prominent shia clerics. a unique feature of this book, compared to the other three books, is the precedence in writing in a way that some of its narratives have been cited from the infallibles (as) by three mediators. according to the documented narratives of the book, “al-kafi” is one of the most reputable shia narrative reference books which its extraction of medical narratives and assessing their authentication, is of great importance. objectives: this study aimed to extract medical narratives of the book “al-kafi”, determine their number, and evaluate their authentication. materials and methods: the current research was a qualitative study which evaluated all narratives of the book “al-kafi”, by “derayat annour” software designed by “islamic sciences computer institute”, evaluated its medical narratives and classified them according to the level of authentication. results: from all narratives of the book “al-kafi” (pillars, furoo, and rouzat al-kafi), 2233 narratives which indicated the effect of material factors on human health, environmental health, and treatment were extracted as medical narratives. extracted narratives were categorized in three groups: accurate, authentic, and poor. total number of accurate/authentic and poor narratives were 1272 and 961, respectively. in other words, around 60% of medical narratives of the book “al-kafi” were assessed as accurate/authentic and just 40% as poor. conclusions: the current study showed that poorness and unreliability of “al-kafi” narratives is a vain thought. hence, it is recommended to perform clinical trial studies (at least) on accurate/authentic narratives, and also consider them as reputable and valid narratives, alongwith traditional medicine references.