Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah's detachment to the sea coast (the Khabat raid)

An expedition the Prophet sent to Sif al-Bahr, that is its coast, under Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah. Ibn Ishaq relates it from Ubada ibn al-Walid ibn Ubada ibn al-Samit, from his father, from his grandfather Ubada ibn al-Samit. ¹ It is not the expedition of Hamza to Sif al-Bahr at the start of the Hijra.

The Prophet provided them with a sack of dates; Abu Ubayda rationed it to them until he counted them out one by one. Then the dates ran out, until he gave each man one date each day; once he shared them out and one man was short of a date, and they found its absence that day. ¹

When hunger overcame them, God brought out for them a creature from the sea; they ate from its flesh and fat and stayed on it for twenty nights until they grew fat and recovered, that is came out of the pain of hunger, as the editors explain. ¹ Their commander took one of its ribs and set it across his road, then ordered the largest camel they had loaded with the largest of their men, who sat on it, and he passed beneath it without its head touching the rib. ¹ When they came to the Prophet and told him, and asked him about what they had done in eating it, he said: a provision God gave you. ¹

The report is cited in the jurisprudence of food: what the sea casts up dead is lawful. The Sahih collections relate it from Jabir ibn Abd Allah under the name "the expedition of al-Khabt", because they ate tree leaves; that name does not appear in Ibn Ishaq (needs_source). It is also read in the chapter on asceticism: one sack of dates for a whole expedition. ¹

• The chain runs continuously to Ubada ibn al-Samit from his father from his grandfather; Ibn Ishaq gives neither the number of the expedition nor its purpose nor its date. ¹