2367 – ʿĪsā ibn ʿAlī informed us; he said: ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad al-Baghawī told us; he said: Nuʿaym ibn Haysam narrated to us; he said: Khalaf ibn Tamīm narrated to us—ḥ.

2368 – And I, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar, say: Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; he said: Yaʿqūb narrated to us; he said: Khalaf ibn Tamīm narrated to us; he said: Bishr Abū al-Khaṣīb narrated to us, saying:

“I was a merchant, well-to-do, and living in the royal district of Chosroes during the plague of Hubayra. One of my servants, named Ashraf, came and told me that a man had died in one of the caravanserais of al-Madāʾin. I mounted my animal and entered that inn. There I came upon the corpse, covered, a brick resting on his abdomen, and with him were ⦗1331⦘ a number of his companions. They spoke of his devotion and his virtues.

I sent for a shroud to be purchased for him, dispatched someone to fetch a gravedigger to dig his grave, prepared bricks, and we sat heating water to wash him. While we were thus occupied, the dead man suddenly sprang up; the brick flew from his belly, and he cried out, ‘Woe, destruction, and fire!’ (In the version of Ibn Manīʿ it adds: ‘His companions fled from him.’)

I drew near, grasped his arm, and shook him, then asked, ‘What did you see? What is your state?’

He replied, ‘I kept company with a group of elders from Kūfa.’ Abū al-Khaṣīb said: he then mentioned one of three things—either ‘They introduced me to their religion,’ or ‘their passion,’ or ‘their opinion’—the doubt is Abū al-Khaṣīb’s—namely, reviling Abū Bakr and ʿUmar and disavowing them.

I said, ‘Seek Allah’s forgiveness and never repeat that.’

He answered, ‘What use is that to me? I have already been taken to the entrance of their place in the Fire; it was shown to me, then I was told, “You will return to your companions, inform them of what you have seen, and then you will go back to your former state.”’

I do not know whether he completed that sentence or whether he reverted to being dead as before. I waited until I brought the shroud, took it, and then said, ‘I will neither shroud him, nor wash him, nor perform the funeral prayer over him,’ and I departed.

Later I was informed that the very group who had been with him undertook washing him, burying him, and praying over him. They said to some people, ‘What fault did you find with our companion?’ The people answered, ‘It was only a seizure by a devil speaking through his tongue.’

Khalaf ibn Tamīm said: I asked, ‘O Abū al-Khaṣīb, this account you have narrated—did you witness it yourself?’ He replied, ‘My own eyes saw it and my own ears heard it.’

The wording is that of Yaʿqūb, except for a single word which I clarified in the course of the narration.”