[Al-Marrūdhī:] I heard this from a man in Tarsus. 88.1

“I’m from Yemen, and I have a daughter who was possessed. I brought in some exorcists who drove out her jinni and made it promise not to return. But then a year later it came back.

“‘Didn’t you promise not to come back?’ I asked.

“‘I did,’ said the jinni. ‘But a man named Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal has died in Iraq and all the jinns—except for the demons, like me—have gone to pray over him. But I won’t be back again.’ “He never returned.” This story has also come down to us in another telling.

[Abū Muḥammad al-Yamānī:] When I was in Yemen, a man told me that his daughter had been possessed by a demon. So I took him to one of our Yemeni exorcists, who drove out her jinni and made it promise not to return. But then about six months later her father came to me and said the demon had returned. 88.2

“Go back to the exorcist,” I said.

So he went back. The exorcist drew out the jinni and got it talking.

“Shame on you!” said the exorcist. “Didn’t you promise to leave her alone?” “I did,” said the jinni. “But we’ve heard that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal is dead. All the righteous jinns have gone to mourn him, and the demons like me are tagging along behind.” [Al-Khallāl:] Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd told me the following: 88.3

I was on my way back from Sind on board ship. At one point I woke up in the night and heard a voice calling from the sea, “Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, the faithful servant of God, is dead!” “What was that?” I asked one of the others on board.

“That was a righteous jinni.” We later learned that Aḥmad had died that night.

[Al-Khallāl:] I also heard that Abū Zurʿah said that where he was from in Khurasan, the jinns announced Aḥmad’s death forty days before it happened.

I also heard Aḥmad’s son Ṣāliḥ say, “Forty days after my father died, after everyone had gone to bed, my family said they heard a sobbing, unlike any sound a human would make, coming from my father’s house.”