The Whale at Sīf al-Baḥr

And then there is the sariyyah of Abū ʿUbaydah. Ibn Kathīr mentions it here, and he says: I mention it here because al-Bayhaqī mentions it in this chronological order — even though this sariyyah must have occurred before the Ṣulḥ of al-Ḥudaybiyah, because Abū ʿUbaydah was sent out yarṣudu ʿīra Quraysh, to watch the caravans of Quraysh; and during the time of al-Ḥudaybiyah there was a truce — and now there is a truce, so how could this happen now? It may have been covered before; it is repeated here briefly, just because Ibn Kathīr mentions it in this position.

They were sent to Sīf al-Baḥr, and the assignment was to gather reconnaissance on the caravans of Quraysh. They ran out of food, so Abū ʿUbaydah would give them one date a day. When this narration was heard later on by one of the Tābiʿūn, he said: and what would one date a day do? The one who was telling them this story said: when the dates ran out, then we knew the value of one date a day. Now you are asking what one date a day would do for us — what kind of meal is that? Yes, it is insignificant; but we knew how valuable and significant it was when we ran out of dates and had nothing.

Qays ibn Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah was with them, and he borrowed some camels from a mushrik, telling him: I am going to pay you. And he would slaughter five camels a day for them, until Abū ʿUbaydah banned him and prohibited him from carrying on. Qays was very generous. Abū ʿUbaydah stopped him because he was going to put himself in big trouble: Qays did not have any money — how was he going to pay back all of this, all of these camels he was slaughtering for us? So he stopped him by force.

Now they had nothing; and because these men were mujāhidūn, Allah provided them with rizq. They saw what appeared to be a hill — a hill of sand, a sand dune — and when they came close, it was a whale, a dead whale. They said: we cannot eat from this, because it is dead. And then Abū ʿUbaydah told them: we are the messengers of the Messenger of Allah, and it is a necessity, so let us eat from it. They were very hungry, and they started eating from this whale. In fact, they set up camp right there next to the whale for an entire month, feeding off this whale; every day they would eat from it. One of them said: until the flesh on our stomachs started to fold. Their stomachs were so tight — first of all, they were very fit, and then they had suffered a period of malnutrition, having had no food for some time, in the desert, very exhausted — and now they were eating every day, daily eating meat, meat, meat from this whale, until the flesh on their stomachs started to fold again.

How many were they? They were eating for an entire month, and how many were they? Three hundred — three hundred men eating daily. This must have been a huge whale: a sperm whale or a blue whale — Allah knows — but it was one of those big whales. Abū ʿUbaydah wanted to test the size of this whale, so he stood up a rib bone from this whale, and he had the tallest man ride on the tallest camel and go under this rib bone, which was set up like an arch, and he could not touch it. It must have been huge, because a camel is a pretty tall animal. And the narrator says: we would tear out pieces of flesh as big as a bull. And then they would dry some of this meat: they would cut off pieces, or slabs, of this meat and put them in the sun to dry, in order to preserve it; otherwise it would rot. And they enjoyed their time very much next to this whale — rizq from Allah that was sent to them.

When they went back to Madīnah, they told the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) the story, because they had some doubt whether they had been allowed to eat it or not. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: that is rizq that was sent to you by Allah; have you brought some of it with you, so that I can have some of it? (Muslim 1935). The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) wanted to have some of this blessed rizq that was sent to them by Allah (ʿazza wa jall), and they said yes, and they gave some of it as a gift to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him).