بشر بن الأزهر

Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamdānī informed us. He said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ibn] Rajāʾ ibn Mirdās al-Naysābūrī related to us. He said: ʿAlī ibn Salama al-Labaqī related to us. He said: Bishr ibn al-Azhar related to us. He said: I was in a house in Jurjān with Ibn Yaḥyā. In a dream I saw myself in Nishapur, in the Karmāniyya quarter. I saw a bier with a black covering over it, surrounded by people. I was told: “This is Abū Ḥanīfa’s funeral.” I thought: “If they take him straight ahead, he will be buried in the Muslims’ cemetery; if they turn onto another road, he will be buried in the Christians’ cemetery.” They went straight ahead with him. I related the dream to Abū Yūsuf, who sent for Abū Bishr al-Balkhī and told him. He said: “This is a man about whom many lies are told.”

The source has عليها أسود, literally “a black [thing] upon it”; “black covering” is a contextual rendering, not an identification of a person.