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[4998] 17 - (1935) It was narrated that Jâbir said: "The Messenger of Allâh ﷺ sent us on an expedition and appointed Abû
‘Ubaidah in charge of us, to intercept a caravan of the Quraish. He supplied us with a bag of dates, and we had no other provisions apart from that. Abû ‘Ubaidah used to give them to us, one date at a time.” He (the narrator) said: “I said: ‘What did you do with it?’ He said: ‘We used to suck it like a child, then drink water after that, and it would suffice us for that day until night. And we used to knock down leaves with our sticks, then soak them in water and eat them. We set off along the coast and there appeared before us on the shore something like a huge mound. We came to it and saw that it was a beast called Al-‘Anbar (sperm whale). Abû ‘Ubaidah said: “It is dead meat.” Then he said: “No, we are the envoys of the Messenger of Allâh (striving) in the cause of Allâh, and we are compelled (by hunger); eat.” We lived on it for a month, three hundred of us, until we grew fat. And I remember that we extracted pitchers of fat from its eye socket, and we cut out pieces of meat like that of a bull. Abû ‘Ubaidah called out thirteen of us and made them sit in its eye socket, and he took one of its ribs and set it up, then he saddled the largest camel we had with us and passed beneath it. And we supplied ourselves with
preserved pieces of its meat. When we reached Al-Madīnah, we came to the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ and told him all of that. He said: "It is provision that Allāh brought forth for you. Do you have any of its meat with you that you can give us to eat?" We sent some of it to the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ and he ate it."
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