"When They Plot By Night"

Here is a Ṣaḥīḥ (Authentic) ḥadīth that gives the tafsīr to the Qur’ānic verse where Allāh (عَزَّ وَ جَلَّ) says “When they plot by night of words which does not please Him (i.e. Allāh)” (Sūrah al-Nisā’ (4) : verse 108). In this ḥadīth the Imām (عليه السلام) mentions three people, “Fulān, fulān and Abū `Ubaydah al-Jarrāḥ”. Usually in the Shī`ah ḥadīth corpus when two fulān (i.e. so and so) is mention it usually always points to Abū Bakr and `Umar, the first two caliphs of Islām. This is the reason why al-Majlisī in his commentary of this ḥadīth in Mirāt al-`Uqūl says the “fulān are Abū Bakr and `Umar” (See: al-Majlisī, Mir’āt al-`Uqūl, vol. 26, pg. 489).

In this ḥadīth the primary narrator (the narrator that narrates this ḥadīth directly from the Imām) is Sulaymān al-Ja`farī. The Sulaymān al-Ja`farī in this ḥadīth is Sulaymān bin Ja`far bin Ibrāhīm al-Ja`farī, who is thiqah (trustworthy) per all Rijāl scholars (i.e. al-Najāshī, al-Ṭūsī, al-Hillī, etc). I have came to know this is the Sulaymān by looking  at the narrators whom narrate from al-Ḥussayn bin Sa`īd (the narrator who has taken the ḥadīth from Sulaymān al-Ja`farī). There are many ḥadīth in our books where the full name of Sulaymān bin Ja`far is given.

مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عِيسَى عَنِ الْحُسَيْنِ بْنِ سَعِيدٍ عَنْ سُلَيْمَانَ الْجَعْفَرِيِّ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ أَبَا الْحَسَنِ ع يَقُولُ فِي قَوْلِ اللَّهِ تَبَارَكَ وَ تَعَالَى إِذْ يُبَيِّتُونَ ما لا يَرْضى‏ مِنَ الْقَوْلِ (النساء -: 108 -) قَالَ يَعْنِي فُلَاناً وَ فُلَاناً وَ أَبَا عُبَيْدَةَ بْنَ الْجَرَّاحِ

From Sulaymān al-Ja`farī said I heard Abā al-Ḥasan (عليه السلام) say about the words of Allāh (تبارك و تعالى), “When they plot by night of words which does not please Him” (Sūrah al-Nisā’: Verse 108) He (عليه السلام) said: ‘Meaning fulān (Abū Bakr), fulān (`Umar) and Abā `Ubaydah bin al-Jarrāḥ”
Source:

1.     Al-Kulaynī, Al-Kāfī, ed. `Alī Akbar al-Ghaffārī, 8 vols., (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah, 3^rd Edition, 1388 AH), vol. 8, pg. 334, ḥadīth # 525

Grading:

1.     Al-Majlisī said this hadeeth is Ṣaḥīḥ (Authentic)
à Mir’āt Al-`Uqūl, 26 vols., (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah, 1410 AH), vol. 26, pg. 488