138 – Abū ʿUthmān al-Umawī narrated to me. He said: I heard my father relate, on the authority of Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, from a gravedigger among Banī Asad. I later passed by that gravedigger and he told me the same report that Abū Bakr had conveyed from him. ⦗128⦘

He said: “A partner of mine and I used to take turns guarding the cemetery of Banī Asad. One night, while I was in the graveyard, I heard a voice call out from a grave: ‘O ʿAbd Allāh!’ Another voice replied, ‘What is it, O Jābir?’ The first said, ‘Will our mother be brought to us?’ The second answered, ‘And what good will that do us? Our father is the better of the two. He is angry with her and has sworn that he will not perform the funeral prayer for her.’ The two kept repeating this exchange several times.

I went over to my companion; he could hear the voices but could not make out the words, so I prompted him. After concentrating, he too understood them.

The next morning, a man came to me and said, ‘Dig me a grave here, between the two graves from which you heard the conversation.’ I asked, ‘Is one of them named Jābir and the other ʿAbd Allāh?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ I told him what I had heard. He said, ‘It is true—I had sworn that I would not perform the prayer over her. No matter; I shall expiate my oath, pray over her, and beseech Allah’s mercy for her.’

Sometime later he passed by me again, carrying his staff and a water-skin, and said, ‘I am setting out for the Hajj because of that oath of mine.’