Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas

Sa'd was one of the first to embrace Islam. It was said by Ibn Ishaq that Sa'd was one of several individuals invited to Islam by Abu Bakr. Sa'd's mother opposed her son's conversion and threatened to go on a hunger strike until he left Islam, but he did not heed her threat and she finally yielded due to his insistence. Chroniclers reported that Muhammad told Sa'd that God praised his firmness in his faith, but also told him to be kinder to his mother, as filial piety is an important virtue in Islam. Sa'd's brother Amir also converted, prompting their mother to undergo another hunger strike, which likewise failed to deter her second son either. According to the Fath al-Bari of Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Sa'd migrated to Medina before Muhammad along with Ibn Umm Maktum and Mus'ab ibn Umayr, where he continued to practice Islam. During a minor reconnaissance operation under Ubayda ibn al-Harith in Rabigh shortly before the Battle of Badr, the team caught the attention of opposing Qurayshi fighters that began to chase them. Sa'd and his team immediately ran away, with some accounts stating that he performed a Parthian shot as he retreated. The team returned to Medina unscathed, and Sa'd prided himself on allowing the Muslim scouts to survive. Sa'd also reportedly managed to capture two Qurayshi soldiers during this battle. Realizing how Sa'd was affecting the enemies, Muhammad gathered arrows for him and stood next to him while he continuously shot, allowing the encircled Muslims to retreat. After Uhud until the Ridda Wars Along with Abu Bakr, Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, Bilal ibn Rabah, Abbad ibn Bishr, and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, Sa'd was a member of the Haras (personal bodyguard) unit of Muhammad. On the same day as the pledge, Sa'd also witnessed the ratification of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah that created a ceasefire or non-aggression pact between Medina and Mecca. Until the Expedition of Tabuk, Sa'd was recorded as participating in all battles under Muhammad, including the Battle of the Trench, the Expedition of al-Muraysi', the Siege of Khaybar, the Conquest of Mecca, the battles in Hunayn and Awtas, and the Siege of Ta'if. Ibn al-Jawzi and Nur ad-Din al-Halabi recorded that Sa'd instead joined the Expedition of Usama bin Zayd along with Umar, Sa'id ibn Zayd, Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, and Qatada ibn al-Nu'man. After the rebels were routed, Sa'd joined the army marching towards Dumat al-Jandal to crush several Bedouin rebels there. Al-Basalamah stated that Umar gathered 12,000 soldiers in Medina to serve under Sa'd. Before the army could be dispatched from Medina, a message from the Iraq front arrived, stating that Abu Ubayd was killed in action during the Battle of the Bridge and the Rashidun soldiers were forced to withdraw to south-west Iraq. Jarir ibn Abdullah of al-Bajali and al-Muthanna ibn Haritha of the Banu Shayban, as those three commanders have just defeated the Sassanid vanguard in the Battle of Buwaib. Sa'd engaged in routine correspondence with the central government in Medina, as Sa'd diligently wrote about all developments, major and trivial, and sent at least two messengers every day to Umar. The caliph responded with a message that forbade Sa'd from preemptive attacks. Islamic sources state that Sa'd sent a series of hostile emissaries to taunt Rostam while waiting to receive reinforcements sent by Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, who had just won the Battle of Yarmuk. As Rostam's army marched to the battlefield, Sa'd sent a dozen horsemen as scouts, led by Tulayha and Amr ibn Ma'adi Yakrib, who disguised themselves as Iraqi locals. They were to ride deep into Sassanid territory and to the outskirts of Ctesiphon to gather intel regarding Rostam's forces. After two days of traveling, the scouts spotted the first vanguards of the army, which they estimated at 70,000. Tulayha and ibn Ma'adi sent the scouts to report their findings to Sa'd, while Tulayha and ibn Ma'adi continued to gather intel by themselves. According to Tulayha, the horses belonged to Rostam. He rejoined ibn Ma'adi and they returned to Sa'd to tell him about the number of enemy forces. Al-Tabari's account of the fighting has formed the basis for many modern-day attempts to reconstruct the events of the battle. According to Sa'd al-Ubaisi's reconstruction of the battle based on al-Tabari's work, the battle occurred over four days, with Sa'd overseeing the battle from a tent overlooking the battlefield and the Sassanids relying upon their elephant corps: • First day, the day of Armath: The cavalry aimed for the elephants' alpha male, which the Muslim army recognized by its brighter skin and their perception that it was seemingly leading the other elephants. The day ended with the elephant corps damaged beyond repair, as most of them were killed along with their riders, while many fled and became uncontrollable, trampling their own comrades and causing massive casualties to the Sassanids. The commander of the elephant corps, Jalinus, fled the battlefield after the Muslim forces gained upper hand. Sa'd ordered his men to chase and kill Jalinus, as he wanted the elephants to be permanently neutralized. A Tamim horseman named Zahra ibn Hawiyah at-Tamimi chased the elephant commander and killed him. Ibn Kathir's version also states that Hilal killed Rostam. After Rostam's death, al-Qa'qa and his Tamim cavalry were surrounded behind enemy lines, while the Muslim army carried out Sa'd's order to advance. Most of the Sassanid forces broke as the Muslim archers attacked them relentlessly. He appointed Zuhra ibn Hawiyah to the vanguard, which marched first to the north, and replaced Khalid ibn Arfatha with Hashim ibn Utbah, his step-nephew, as his deputy. Khalid was reappointed as the rear guard commander. The Tigris was undergoing a heavy tide at the time and crossing it without boats was impossible for the Rashidun forces. Sa'd was forced to wait until they could cross the river. Sa'd heard that the people of Mosul had gathered at Tikrit under a figure named al-Antioch. After they were finished in Tikrit, ibn Mu'tam sent Rabi'i ibn al-Afkal and Arfajah to subdue Nineveh and Mosul before the news about Antiqa's defeat in Tikrit spread. As Yazdegerd fled to Hulwan, he gathered soldiers and followers in every territory passed until he mustered more than 100,000 soldiers and appointed Mihran as their commander. The army of Mihran dug a large ditch around them as a defense and dwelt in that place with a number of troops, supplies, and equipment. Sa'd requested further instruction from Umar, and the caliph ordered Sa'd to stay in al-Mada'in and appoint Hashim ibn Utbah as the leader of the troops to attack Jalula. Sa'd executed these instructions and sent Hashim to lead the Rashidun troops to engage Mihran forces in the Battle of Jalula. Al-Qa'qa was appointed as vanguard, Malik ibn Si'r as right wing, Amr ibn Malik on the left, and Amr ibn Murrah al-Juhani as rearguard. The new misr was formally called Jund al-Kufah, which was a complex for the Muslim soldiers who settled in that area permanently along with their families. Sa'd made Kufa his permanent headquarters. Umar then ordered the troops in Kufa to assist the army in Emesa, where Abu Ubaydah and Khalid ibn al-Walid were besieged by a Christian Arab army under the command of Heraclius. Sa'd sent al-Qa'qa and several thousand cavalries as reinforcements. As the besiegers of Emesa were repelled, Umar ordered al-Qa'qa to return to Iraq. He refused all of Sa'd's offers of hospitality, and handed him a missive from Umar reminding him that the citadel should be available to the public, suggesting that he move his house. According to Asad Ahmed, the caliph also dispatched several intelligence officers, including a spy named Hashim ibn Walid ibn al-Mughira, to investigate Sa'd's conduct. They found unanimous support and positive impressions from the Kufa residents towards Sa'd, except from the tribes of Bajila and Abs. According to al-Basalamah, this was because Umar wanted to minimize any potential scandals. He admitted that he trusted Sa'd, Some narrations state that although Umar removed him from his post as governor, he recommended that the caliph who succeeded him reinstall Sa'd, since he had not removed Sa'd due to any treachery. Sa'd outlived all of the other ten to whom Paradise was promised and died at the age of eighty, around the year 674. ==Legacy==

As a figure with a long career in early Islamic history and its conquests, Sa'd left a rich legacy as a military figure and as an honored companion of Muhammad; legends surrounding him served as influences on China's Islamic tradition. Sa'd's characterization as a hero of Islam and the Arabs was used by Saddam Hussein to link himself to the conqueror of Iraq. Islamic scholarship Sunni Muslims regard Sa'd as one of the ten to whom Paradise was promised, and he is famed for his participation in Badr and Uhud. Various verses of the Quran are said to have been inspired by him, including ayah 8 of Al-Ankabut, which commenters have suggested was inspired by Sa'd's steadfastness in Islam, The Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal contains 177 hadiths attributed to him. Various prominent narrators such as Abdullah ibn Umar, Aisha, and Abdullah ibn Abbas also narrated from Sa'd, as Dhahabi recorded. Sa'd earned part of his income via ''muzara'a'', a business model similar to sharecropping whereby the product was shared according to fixed ratio. Architecture Sa'd is credited with the foundation of the city of Kufa adjacent to Al-Hirah, which was founded by the Lakhmid king Al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir. The main roads of Kufa were twenty yards wide and thirty to forty-five feet long. According to Imamuddin, the town reached its zenith during the time of Umar, who called it Ras Islam. It was originally built as a permanent settlement for the Muslim army in Iraq. Ibn Shamil's al-Bidaya wa Nihaya named Sa'd the first to lead Friday prayers in Iraq, Military Islamic scholars praise Sa'd for his two most important battles in Iraq: the battle of Qadisiyyah and the pacification of Ctesiphon. Bashamil considered the battle of al-Qadisiyyah the beginning of the permanent entrenchment of the caliphate's presence in Iraq, as almost all Iraqi cities that broke away from the caliphate when Khalid ibn al-Walid departed immediately succumbed to Sa'd. The 17th century Hui scholar Liu Ch'ih instead credited Sa'd with introducing Islam to China in 616 after he moved to China from Abyssinia. Despite several Chinese claimants as Sa'd's descendants, the claims that Sa'd visited China remains controversial among scholars. According to Donald Leslie, "Chinese Muslim tradition, with sources from the 14th century and later, has the Sahâba Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqâs, maternal cousin of Muhammad, conqueror of Persia and founder of Kufâh, sent with other envoys in 628, but it is highly unlikely that envoys were actually sent to China during Muhammad's lifetime. Tabarî writes of envoys to Persia, Ethiopia and elsewhere, but does not mention China. We should note that besides the famous Guangzhou tomb for Waqqâs in China, there is one also in Medina, far more convincing". L. C. Harris remarked that most Arab historians reject the notion due to lack of records for such a journey by Sa'd. Maurice Gajan speculates that the local traditions about Sa'd are linked to some Muslim traders from the West Asia establishing small communities in the coastal towns of Quanzhou, Guangzhou, and Yangzhou during early medieval periods. Sa'd is nonetheless an important figure in Chinese Muslims' cultural heritage, particularly the mosques and tombs that are attributed to him by local Muslims. In Central Asia, his name is often transcribed as Saduakas (Sadvakas), which is a very common name among the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. == Description ==

Sa'd was born in Mecca in 595. His father was Abu Waqqas Malik ibn Uhayb ibn Abd Manaf ibn Zuhrah from the Banu Zuhrah clan of the Quraysh tribe. Sa'd's mother was Hamnah bint Sufyan ibn Umayya ibn Abd Shams ibn Abd Manaf. Sa'd was related to Muhammad, whose mother Aminah came from the Banu Zuhrah. Sa'd had many children, including sons named Umar and Amir and a daughter named A'isha. Asad Q. Ahmed remarks that Sa'd was politically astute during his duty in Iraq as he engaged in active roles against Umar over financial and political matters. Another factor for Sa'd's victory in al-Qadisiyyah was the quality of his archers, as Rashidun archers were typically precise and powerful shooters, akin to Byzantine archers in the Battle of Callinicum. This powerful archery style allowed Rashidun archers to easily overcome Sassanid archers who preferred the rapid, showering Panjagan archery technique, as the former packed more punch and range than the latter during the Muslim conquest of Persia. Sassanid arrows failed to pierce Rashidun armor or shields, while the arrows of Muslim archers were able to penetrate the mail and double cuirass of Sassanid warriors. In short, many of Sa'd's brilliant victories against Persians were due to the brilliance of his subordinates. Many resented this faction, as some thought their inactivity prevented a decisive result in the conflict. Modern analysts have theorized that this neutrality was based on Sa'd's belief that the search for Uthman's murderer should not drag the caliphate into civil war. == Family tree ==

Descendants Sa'd's descendants gained some degree of influence within the caliphate's political sphere, particularly within the late Rashidun and early Umayyad eras. Early caliphate According to Asad Q. Ahmed, Sa'd's clan was closely related to the southern Arabs, their main allies. Sa'd had children from two Kinda women. The first was Mawiyyah bint Qays, who bore him three daughters and two sons. The second was Umm Hilal bint Rabi', a daughter of a war camel breeder in Kufa; she bore Sa'd three children. Sa'd also married Makita bint Amr of the Banu Bahra' clan of the Quda'a tribe, which claimed descent from Ma'ad ibn Adnan. Makita bore four children. Another wife, Salma bint Khasafah, bore him six children. He had at least eight more wives from various tribes. Sa'd's daughters with Mawiyyah married influential men of the caliphate, such as Al-Mughira ibn Shu'bah, Sa'd's lieutenant and a high-ranked sahaba hailing from the Banu Thaqif, and Ibrahim ibn Abd ar Rahman, the wealthy son of Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, one of the ten to whom Paradise was promised. This tied the two prominent Zuhrite households together. According to Ibn Bashkuwal, Muhammad II of Córdoba appointed Ibn al-Iflili as a minister during his reign. ==See also==