They were struck by hunger. He said, "We were seven, and the Prophet ﷺ gave me seven dates, one date for each person."
حدثنا محمد بن جعفر حدثنا شعبة عن عباس الجريري قال سمعت أبا عثمان يحدث
أنهم أصابهم جوع قال ونحن سبعة فأعطاني النبي ﷺ سبع تمرات لكل إنسان تمرة
Its isnad is sahih. Abbas Jareeri, with a damma on the jim, is Abbas bin Faruq Basri, whose reliability was established earlier at 2726, and we add here that Bukhari included his biography in Al-Kabir 4/1/4, and Ibn Abu Hatim in 3/1/211-212, and it is reported from Abdullah bin Ahmad, from his father Imam Ahmad, that he said, "Abbas Jareeri is a trustworthy shaykh." Abu Uthman is Nahdi, the senior taabii, Abdul-Rahman bin Mill, who is trustworthy.This hadith appears in Jami al-Masanid wal-Sunan 7:507-508, taken from this very place, and Ibn Majah related it at 4157 from Abu Bakr bin Abu Shayba, from Ghundar, who is Muhammad bin Jafar, the shaykh of Ahmad here, with this same isnad. Munziri mentioned it in Targheeb 4:1212 and said, "Ibn Majah related it, with a sahih isnad."Bukhari related it with two other wordings. He related it at 9:478, 489, in Fath, through Hammad bin Zayd, from Abbas Jareeri, from Abu Uthman Nahdi, and in it, the Prophet ﷺ gave every person seven dates. Then he related it at 9:489-490 through Ismail bin Zakariya, from Aasim, from Abu Uthman, from Abu Hurairah, who said, "The Prophet ﷺ divided dates among us, and I received five of them." The Hafiz went to considerable trouble trying to reconcile the two versions.He then said, "An even greater discrepancy has occurred in this hadith, for Tirmidhi related it through Shuba, from Abbas Jareeri, with the wording, 'They were struck by hunger, so the Prophet ﷺ gave them one date each.' Nasai related it from this same route, with the wording, 'He divided seven dates among seven men, myself among them.' Ibn Majah and Ahmad related it from this same route, with the wording, 'They were struck by hunger, and they were seven, so the Prophet ﷺ gave me seven dates, one date for each person.'" These versions are close in meaning to each other, but they conflict with the version of Hammad bin Zayd.In the printed edition of Fath, this appears here attributed to Ibn Abbas, but the addition of "Ibn" comes from a copyist or a typesetter. The Hafiz then attempted to give preference to the version of Hammad bin Zayd, though he remained hesitant about this. It appears that these were multiple separate incidents, related by Abu Hurairah, and related from him by Abu Uthman Nahdi, and the matter is close enough either way.