The Braying Drunkard

Al-’Awâm b. Hawshab (148H) – Allâh have mercy on him – said:

I once came to an area in one part of which was a graveyard. After ‘asr, one of the graves split open and a man with the head of a donkey and the body of a human came up from it and brayed three times, after which the grave closed back up on him. I then saw an old woman weaving fleece or wool, and a woman said, “Do you see that old woman?” I said, “What about her?” She replied, “That is the mother of this [dead] man.” I asked, “What was his story?” She replied, “He used to drink wine, and whenever he would go out his mother would say, ‘O my son, fear Allâh; until when will you keep drinking wine?’ He would reply, ‘You bray like a donkey.’” The woman said, “He then died after ‘asr, so every day after ‘asr the grave opens up and he brays a few times, then the grave closes up on him again.”

Al-Hâfidh Abul-Qâsim Al-Asbahânî, Al-Targhîb wa Al-Tarhîb article 471.

Shaykh Nâsir Al-Dîn Al-Albânî graded this narration hasan in his edition of Al-Mundhirî’s Al-Targhîb wa Al-Tarhîb. See Sahîh Al-Targhîb wa Al-Tarhîb hadîth 2517.

Al-Mundhirî quotes Al-Asbahânî as saying:
This [story] was narrated by Abul-’Abbâs Al-Asam in a dictation at Naysâbûr, in the presence of great preservers [of traditions] and people of knowledge, and they did not reject it.