Malik narrated—from Wahb ibn Kaysān—from Jābir—who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ dispatched an expedition toward the coast and put Abū ʿUbaydah in command. They were three hundred men, and I was among them. When we had covered part of the journey our provisions were exhausted, so Abū ʿUbaydah ordered that whatever rations the army still possessed be gathered together. All of it came to two saddlebags of dates. Each day he would allot us a small amount until those dates ran out. Every man received no more than a single date. I asked, “What good is one date?” He replied, “We only realized its worth when even that one was gone.”

We then reached the sea and came upon a fish as large as a hill. The entire army ate from it for eighteen nights. Abū ʿUbaydah then had two of its ribs set upright, ordered that a riding camel be saddled, and the camel passed beneath the ribs without touching them. Recorded by the two Imams (al-Bukhārī and Muslim).

Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah also reported—from Abū al-Zubayr—from Jābir: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent us to intercept a Quraysh caravan and supplied us with only one leather bag of dates. Abū ʿUbaydah would give us one date apiece. We would beat the desert-acacia leaves with our staffs, moisten them with water, and eat them. We marched along the seashore until something like a sand dune appeared before us. When we reached it, we found a creature called al-ʿanbar. Abū ʿUbaydah said, “It is carrion.” Then he reconsidered and said, “No— we are envoys of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, we are on the path of Allah, and you are in necessity, so eat.”

We camped on it for a full month—three hundred men—until we grew fat. We would ladle out buckets of fat from the hollow of its eye and cut from it chunks as large as bulls. Abū ʿUbaydah seated thirteen men inside its eye socket, and he set up one of its ribs, saddled the largest camel we had, and the camel walked under the rib without touching it.

We dried some of its meat in strips and took it as provisions. When we reached Madinah we went to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and told him what had happened. He said, “It was a provision that Allah brought forth for you. Do you still have any of its meat so that you may let us taste it?” We sent some of it to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he ate of it. Recorded by Muslim alone.