It is narrated from Rashiq of Madarai that he said: Motazid sent amessenger to the three of us and ordered us to mount on our horses and not totake anything with us except the prayer mat and reach so and so house andsuch and such locality of Samarrah. “There you will find a black servant. You should besiege that house and apprehend anyone you see there and bring him to me.”
Thus we reached Samarrah and made way to the house Motazid hadspecified. On the doorstep was a black servant spinning threads. We askedhim who was present in the house.
He replied: The owner. And by Allah, he did not stop us in any way. Weentered the house as we had been ordered. The house was absolutely cleanand there was a curtain in the front; so beautiful as we had never seen before.As if it was just made at that moment. There was no one in the house and wepulled the curtain aside. We saw a huge room with a stream of water and atthe end of which was a mat which seemed to be floating on the water. Upon the mat stood the most handsome man engrossed in prayers. He neither paidattention to us nor the means we had. At that moment Ahmad bin Abdullah, aperson among us stepped into the water in order to enter the room but hebegan to drown. He struggled with all his might to prevent himself fromdrowning till we stretched out our hands and pulled him out. He fell down unconscious for sometime. The second time another member of our group repeated this. He also tried to step in the water to enter the room and he alsofell down in the same condition. I was shocked and awed. Then I addressedthe owner of the house: I seek forgiveness for you in the court of Allah, byAllah I don’t know what the matter is and to whom we have come and indeed I beg Allah for forgiveness.
However he did not give any response to what I had said and he did notcome out of his condition. Due to this a terrible awe struck us and we cameout of there. Motazid was waiting for us and he had instructed the sentry that as soon as we returned, we should be taken to him immediately. We reachedhim in the middle of the night. He asked us about what had passed. Werelated to him everything in detail. He cried: Woe be unto you, did anyone see you before me? And did anyone else hear this from you? We said: No. He said: I am not the grandson of my grandfather – and he took a great oath – if I ever hear it, I shall cut off your heads. We also did not dare to relate this
matter to anyone as long as Motazid was alive.
Reference : Beharul anwar vol 51.52.53 , Part 1 , The Promised Mahdi