English Translation

Muhammad ibn Bakr told us, Ibn Jurayj informed us, Amr ibn Dinar informed me, who said: I heard Jabir ibn Abdullah say: We went on the expedition of the Army of the Pounded Leaves, with Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah as our commander. We became severely hungry, so the sea cast up for us a whale the like of which we had never seen, called al-'Anbar, and we ate from it for half a month. Abu Ubaydah took one of its bones, and a rider could pass beneath it. Muhammad ibn Bakr told us, Ibn Jurayj informed us, Abu al-Zubayr informed me that he heard Jabir ibn Abdullah relate something similar to Amr's account, adding to it: he said: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, provided us with a bag of dates, and he used to hand out to us a handful at a time, then a date at a time, which we would chew and drink water over, until nightfall. Then what was in the bag ran out, so we would gather the pounded leaves with our bows. We became severely hungry, and the sea cast up for us a dead creature. Abu Ubaydah said, "We are fighters and hungry, so eat." So we ate. Abu Ubaydah used to set up one of its ribs, and a rider would pass on his camel beneath it, and a group of five men would sit in the socket of its eye. We ate from it and used its fat, until our bodies recovered and our complexions improved. When we arrived in Medina, Jabir said, we mentioned it to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and he said, "It is a provision Allah brought forth for you; if you have any of it left with you, feed it to us." He said: We had some of it left, so some of the people sent it to him, and he ate from it.