[Ibn Abī l-Dunyā:] I heard Abū Yūsuf ibn Bukhtān—who was a good Muslim—report that when Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal died, someone had a dream where he saw a lamp on every grave. When he asked why, he was told, “Don’t you see? As soon as that man was put in among them, the tombs of all the dead were illuminated. Some of the dead who were being tormented were forgiven.” 95.1

[ʿUbayd ibn Sharīk:] A drag queen524 who died was seen in a dream saying, “I’ve been forgiven: as soon as Aḥmad was placed among us, everyone dead and buried was forgiven.” 95.2

[Al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad:] When al-Qaṭīʿī’s mother died, he had her buried near Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. A few nights later she appeared to him in a dream. He asked her how she had fared and she said, “God bless you, my son! Every night”—or “Every Friday night”—“a wave of mercy descends on the grave of the man you buried me near, and it covers all of us buried here, including me.” 95.3

[Al-Jammāl:] One night, in the cemetery where Aḥmad is buried, I recited the verse «Among those some shall be damned, and others shall be blessed.»525 Then I nodded off and heard a voice say, “Because of Aḥmad’s presence, no one here is damned, thank God!” 95.4

[The author:] One of the early Muslims is said to have told the following story. 95.5

Where I lived there was an old woman, a Worshipper, who had spent fifty years serving God. One day she woke up in terror.

“Last night a jinni came to me,” she said. “He said he was my male counterpart.526

He told me that the jinns had overheard the angels offering each other condolences on the imminent death of a righteous man named Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal who would be buried in Such-and-Such a place. God will forgive anyone who takes up residence nearby, so if you can go there when you feel death coming on, do it. Please believe me: I’m telling you this for your own good. You’ll die the night after he does.” And that’s what happened, so we knew it was a truthful dream.

[Abū l-Barakāt:] I had a friend named Thābit: a righteous man who read the Qurʾan, called on people to do good, and forbade them to do ill. When he died, I didn’t pray over him because something happened to prevent me. Then he came to me in a dream. When I greeted him, he didn’t answer, and turned aside. 95.6

“Thābit!” I said. “How can you ignore me when we’ve been such good friends?” “So if we’re friends, why didn’t you pray over me?” I apologized to him then asked him to tell me how things were in Aḥmad’s burial ground, since he’d been buried there.

“No one here feels the Fire,” he said.

“What about the burial ground of Quraysh?” “I don’t know about that,” he said. “I’ve told you as much as I know.” “When someone new comes to join you, do you visit them and ask them questions?” “We visit and ask about the living people they’ve left behind.” [The author:] I read something my teacher Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Zāghūnī wrote in his own hand, as follows: “When the Prophet’s descendant Abū Jaʿfar ibn Abī Mūsā was buried next to him, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s tomb was exposed.

His corpse had not putrified and the shroud was still whole and undecayed.” 95.7

Abū Jaʿfar died 129 years after Ibn Ḥanbal.