Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq said: Saʿīd ibn Mināʾ told me that he had been informed that a daughter of Bashīr ibn Saʿd—who was the sister of al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr—recounted: “My mother, ʿAmrah bint Rawāḥah, called me over, placed a handful of dates in the fold of my garment, and said, ‘My dear child, take these to your father and to your uncle ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah for their lunch.’

I set off with them, and as I was looking for my father and my uncle I passed by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He said, ‘Come here, little girl; what is that with you?’ I replied, ‘O Messenger of Allah, these are dates my mother sent to my father Bashīr ibn Saʿd and my uncle ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥah for their meal.’ He said, ‘Bring them here.’

I poured the dates into the hands of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and they did not even fill his palms. He then asked for a cloth to be spread out, scattered the dates upon it so that they spread across the cloth, and said to a man beside him, ‘Call out to the people of the trench: come to lunch!’ The diggers gathered around, eating from the dates while the amount kept increasing until they all departed satisfied, and dates were still falling from the edges of the cloth.

This is how Ibn Isḥāq narrated it, though the chain is broken; al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī also transmitted it through the same route without adding anything further.

Ibn Isḥāq also said: I was informed that Salmān al-Fārisī said, ‘I was working on one section of the trench when I struck a [rock] too hard for me. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was nearby. When he saw the difficulty I faced, he came down, took the pickaxe from my hand, and struck a blow—whereupon a flash gleamed beneath the pick. He struck a second time and another flash appeared, and then a third time and yet another flash. I cried, “May my father and mother be ransomed for you, O Messenger of Allah! What was that flash I saw beneath the pick?” He asked, “Did you truly see it, O Salmān?” I replied, “Yes.” He said, “At the first blow Allah opened Yemen for me; at the second, Allah opened Syria and the West; and at the third, Allah opened the East.”’

Al-Bayhaqī remarked: What Ibn Isḥāq has mentioned was likewise reported by Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah in his Maghāzī, and by Abū al-Aswad from ʿUrwah. Al-Bayhaqī also transmitted it through the isnād of Muḥammad ibn Yūnus al-Kudaymī, though his ḥadīth is questionable. Ibn Jarīr, however, included it in his History through Muḥammad ibn Bashār Bundār, both of them reporting from Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn—