while the Prophet ﷺ was accompanied by ten. Abu Bakr then had supper with the Prophet ﷺ, remained with him until he had performed the ʿIshāʾ Prayer, and only returned home after as much of the night had passed as Allah willed.
His wife asked, “What has kept you from your guests?”
He replied, “Did you not give them supper?”
She said, “They refused to eat until you came, even though the food had already been placed before them (1).”
He said, “So I slipped away and hid myself.”
Then he shouted, yā ghunthar (“you scoundrel!”), cursed and reviled, and said, “Eat—may it not benefit you! By Allah, I shall never taste it!”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān continued, “By Allah, every time we lifted a morsel, the portion underneath it swelled (2) so that what remained below was larger than what we had taken, until they were all satisfied and the dish ended up containing more than it had held before.
Abu Bakr looked at it and said to his wife, ‘O sister of Banī Firās (3), what is this?’
She replied, ‘No, wa qurrata ʿaynī (by the delight of my eye), it is now three times as much as it was before! (4)’
Abu Bakr then ate from it and said, “That was only from Satan,” meaning the oath he had sworn. He ate another morsel, then carried the dish to the Prophet ﷺ, where it remained until morning.
There was a treaty between us and a certain people; when its term expired we set out—twelve men in all, each accompanied by a number of others, Allah knows how many with each—and they all ate from that dish.
Another narration states: Abu Bakr swore that he would not eat it, his wife swore that she would not eat it, and the guest—or the guests—swore that they would not eat it, nor allow it to be eaten, until he did. Abu Bakr said, “This is from Satan!” He then called for the food, and he and they all ate. Whenever they lifted a morsel, what lay beneath increased, whereupon he said, “O sister of Banī Firās, what is this?” She answered, “By the delight of my eye, it is now greater than it was before we began to eat!” So they ate, and he sent it to the Prophet ﷺ, who, it was reported, ate from it.
In yet another version Abu Bakr said to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, “See to your guests, for I am going to—”