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…