The table of Jabir: the hard mound and the feast

Ibn Ishaq said: there were in the digging of the Trench hadiths that reached me containing, from Allah the Most High, a lesson in confirming the Messenger of Allah and establishing his prophethood, and the Muslims beheld that; of it is that Jabir ibn Abdallah used to relate that a hard mound caused them great fatigue in part of the Trench, and they complained of it to the Messenger of Allah, who called for a vessel of water, spat into it, then invoked with what Allah willed him to invoke, then sprinkled the water upon that mound; and whoever was present said: by Him who sent him with the truth it collapsed until it became like a sand dune that no pick nor broom resists: thus Ibn Ishaq mentions it, with a broken chain, from Jabir ibn Abdallah. Al-Bukhari said: Khallad ibn Yahya narrated to us: Abd al-Wahid ibn Aymen narrated to us, from his father, who said: I came to Jabir and he said: on the day of the Trench we were digging when a severe difficulty presented itself, and they came to the Prophet and said: this is a mound that has presented itself in the Trench.

He said: ’I shall descend.’ Then he rose,

his belly bound with a stone, and we stayed three days tasting nothing. The Prophet took the pick and struck, and it became a luminous dune, and I said: O Messenger of Allah, permit me to go to the house. I said to my wife: I have seen of the Prophet something no patience could bear; do you have anything? She said: I have barley and a she-camel.

She slaughtered the she-camel and ground the barley until we had put the meat in the pot; then I came to the Prophet, the dough having collapsed and the pot on the trivets about to cook, and said: a morsel for me; rise, O Messenger of Allah, and a man or two. He said: ’how much is it?’ I mentioned it to him and he said: ’plentiful and good; tell her not to remove the pot nor the bread from the oven until I come.’ Then he said: ’rise’, and the Muhajirun and the Ansar rose, and when he entered upon his wife he said: woe to you, the Prophet has come with the Muhajirun and the Ansar and whoever is with them. She said: did he ask you? I said: yes.

He said: ’enter, and do not crush one another’; and he began breaking the bread and placing the meat upon it,

moistening the pot and the oven as he took from them, and bringing near to his companions, then withdrawing, and he kept breaking the bread and ladling until they were full and a remainder remained; and he said: ’eat and give to feed, for the people have been stricken with hunger’: al-Bukhari alone reports it. The Imam Ahmad reported it, from Waki’, from Abd al-Wahid ibn Aymen, from his father Aymen al-Habashi, freedman of the Banu Makhzum, from Jabir, with the story of the mound and the stone bound upon his noble belly. Al-Bayhaqi reported it in ad-Dala’il, from al-Hakim, from al-Asamm, from Ahmad ibn Abd al-Jabbar, from Yunus ibn Bukayr, from Abd al-Wahid ibn Aymen, from his father, from Jabir, with the story of the mound and the food, its length being more complete than the version of al-Bukhari; he said in it: when the Prophet knew the measure of the food he said to the Muslims all together: rise to Jabir; and they rose. He said: I met with shame what none but Allah knows, and said: he has brought the creatures upon a sa’ of barley and a she-camel!

And I entered upon my wife saying: you have been exposed; the Messenger of Allah has come to you with the Trench all together. She said: did he ask you how much your food was? I said: yes. She said: Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: she lifted from me a great distress. The Messenger of Allah entered and said: take, and leave me of the meat; and the Messenger of Allah began rolling and ladling the meat, then moistening this and moistening that, bringing near to the people until they were all full and the oven and the pot returned as full as they were; then the Messenger of Allah said: ’eat and give to feed’, and she kept eating and feeding all our day. Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shayba reported it likewise, from Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Muharibi, from Abd al-Wahid ibn Aymen, from his father, from Jabir, likewise, and more ample also, saying at its end: he informed me they were eight hundred, or he said three hundred. Yunus ibn Bukayr said, from Hisham ibn Sa’d, from Abu az-Zubayr, from Jabir, mentioning the story at length in the food only, and said: they were three hundred.

Then al-Bukhari said: Amr ibn Ali narrated to us: Abu Asim narrated to us: Hanzala ibn Abi Sufyan narrated to us: Sa’id ibn Mina informed me: I heard Jabir ibn Abdallah say: when the Trench was dug I saw of the Prophet a great hunger, and I hurried to my wife and said: do you have anything? For I have seen of the Messenger of Allah a severe hunger. She brought out to me a bag in which was a sa’ of barley, and we had a house beast, and I slaughtered it, and she ground until she finished as I finished, and I cut it in its pot; then I turned to the Messenger of Allah, and she said: disgrace me not before the Messenger of Allah and those with him. I came to him and confided in him and said: O Messenger of Allah, we have slaughtered a beast of ours and ground a sa’ of barley we had; come, you and a group with you.

The Messenger of Allah cried with a loud voice: ’O people of the Trench, Jabir has made a dish; come to an invitation’; and the Messenger of Allah said: ’do not take down your pot nor bake your dough until I come’. I came, and the Messenger of Allah came leading the people forward until I came to my wife,

and she said: upon you and upon you. I said: I have done what you said. She brought out for us dough, and he spat in it and blessed, then went to our pot and spat and blessed, then said: ’call your baker woman to bake with you, and ladle from your pot and take it not down’. They were a thousand, and he swore by Allah they ate until they left it and turned away, and our pot was still covering as it was, and our dough baking as it was; and Muslim reported it from Hajjaj ibn ash-Sha’ir, from Abu Asim, in like manner. Ibn Ishaq reported this hadith, and in its account is strangeness from some angles, and he said: Sa’id ibn Mina related to me, from Jabir ibn Abdallah: we worked with the Messenger of Allah on the Trench, and I had a little non-fat sheep. I said: by Allah, were we to cook it for the Messenger of Allah; and I ordered my wife and she ground for us something of barley and made us bread of it, and I slaughtered that sheep and we roasted it for the Messenger of Allah. When we reached evening and the Messenger of Allah wished to depart from the Trench: and we worked in it by day,

and when evening came we returned to our families: I said: O Messenger of Allah, I have cooked for you a sheep and made with it something of bread of this barley, and I would love that you depart with me to my dwelling: and he wanted only that the Messenger of Allah depart with him alone. When I said that he said: yes; then ordered a crier who cried: depart with the Messenger of Allah to the house of Jabir ibn Abdallah. I said: to Allah we belong and to Him we return. The Messenger of Allah came forward and the people came with him, and he sat, and we brought it out to him; he blessed and named Allah the Most High, then ate, and the people came one after another; whenever a people finished they rose and people came, until the people of the Trench had left it.

The strangeness is that the Imam Ahmad only reported it through Sa’id ibn Mina, from Ya’qub ibn Ibrahim ibn Sa’d, from his father, from Ibn Ishaq, from him, from Jabir, the like of it likewise. Ibn Ishaq said: Sa’id ibn Mina related to me that it has been related that a daughter of Bashir ibn Sa’d, sister of an-Nu’man ibn Bashir, said:

my mother Amra bint Rawaha called me and gave me a handful of dates in my garment, then said: O daughter, go to your father Bashir ibn Sa’d and your uncle Abdallah ibn Rawaha with their lunch. She said: I took it and went, passing by the Messenger of Allah while I sought my father and uncle, and he said: ’come, O daughter; what is this with you?’ She said: O Messenger of Allah, these are dates my mother sent me to carry to my father Bashir ibn Sa’d and my uncle Abdallah ibn Rawaha to eat for lunch. He said: ’bring them’. She said: I poured them into the two palms of the Messenger of Allah and they did not fill them; then he ordered a cloth which was spread for him, then rolled the dates upon it and they scattered over the cloth; then he said to a man with him: ’call among the people of the Trench: come to lunch’; and the people of the Trench gathered upon it and began eating of it, and it kept increasing until the people of the Trench departed from it, and it fell from the edges of the cloth.

Thus Ibn Ishaq reported it, and in it is a break, and thus the hafiz al-Bayhaqi reported it by his route without adding.