Imām al-Dhahabī mentions the following story in his entry for Sufyān ath-Thawrī:
”ʻAlī b. ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz
said, Arim narrated to us saying, I went to Abū Manṣūr to visit him, he said to
me,
‘Sufyān resided in this
house, and there was here a nightingale belonging to
my son. He (Sufyān) said,
‘‘Why is this locked up (in a cage)? It should be freed.’’
I said, ‘It belongs to
my son, and he gives it to you as a gift.’
Sufyān said, ‘No, I will give him a
dinar for it.’ He said, ‘He then took it and freed it, and it would go out and
return in the evening, and would be at the far end of the house.
When Sufyān
died, it followed his funeral procession and was flying over his grave. After
this on some nights it would go to his grave, and sometimes
would spend the
night there, and sometimes would return back home. They then found it dead by
his grave and it was buried alongside Sufyān.”’
[al-Fawāʼid al-Gharrah, 3/281]
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