- Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Jarmī narrated to me; Abū Numayla reported; Yazīd ibn ʿAmr al-Taymī reported; Mujālid ibn Saʿīd, on the authority of al-Shaʿbī, who said:
“Ṣafwān ibn Umayya was once in a cemetery when he noticed torches advancing, accompanying a funeral bier. As they drew near the burial ground they said, ‘Search for the grave of so-and-so.’ Then a man heard a mournful, anguished voice coming from inside a grave, reciting:
May God delight the eyes of the lady in her litter,
and bless your arrival to us, O Amīn!
You showed no dread of the tomb’s deep darkness,
nor of the earth’s cold embrace, O Amīn!
He told the people what he had heard, and they wept until their beards were soaked. They asked him, ‘Do you know who Amīna is?’ He replied, ‘No.’ They said, ‘She is the one now upon the bier, and this is her sister who died last year.’ Ṣafwān then said, ‘We know that the dead do not speak—so where did this voice come from?’”