Khalid ibn al-Walid

Khalid ibn al-Walid rode with the Quraysh aristocracy that opposed Muhammad, leading the cavalry charge that nearly destroyed the Muslim army at Uhud in 625. Two years later he converted, and Muhammad gave him the name Sayf Allah. After the Prophet's death in 632, Khalid spent a year putting down the Ridda Wars - rebel Arab tribes across the peninsula - crushing Tulayha at Buzakha and the self-proclaimed prophet Musaylima at Yamama in 633. Abu Bakr then sent him to Iraq, where he routed Sasanian garrisons along the Euphrates, before reassigning him to Syria and a forced march across waterless desert that no Byzantine commander expected. Between 634 and 636 Khalid won Ajnadayn, Fahl, Damascus, and the Yarmouk - a string of victories that broke Byzantine control of the Levant. Caliph Umar demoted him mid-campaign, fearing his battlefield fame was becoming a cult, and dismissed him entirely around 638. He died four years later, either in Medina or Homs.