Sad ibn Abi Waqqas

Sad ibn Abi Waqqas commanded the Arab army that destroyed the Sasanian empire at Qadisiyyah and founded the city of Kufa. He was among the earliest converts to Islam, said to be the seventeenth, and was a maternal relative of Muhammad; he is traditionally credited with being the first Muslim to shed blood in the cause and was one of the ten to whom paradise was promised. Umar appointed him to the Iraqi front in 636, and at Qadisiyyah he faced a Persian army under Rustam Farrokhzad that was larger and included elephants. The battle lasted three or four days; the Arabs blinded and panicked the elephants, a sandstorm blew into Persian faces on the last day, and Rustam was killed. Ctesiphon fell soon after, and the treasury and the Sasanian court withdrew east; the empire that had fought Rome to a standstill for four centuries did not recover. Sad commanded the battle from a building overlooking the field because he was ill with sciatica and boils, which his critics used against him and which the sources report without embarrassment. He founded Kufa as a garrison town in 638, and it became one of the great cities of early Islam and the centre of Shia politics. Umar later removed him as governor after complaints, reportedly saying he did so not for incompetence but to settle the quarrel. He was on the council that chose Uthman, and stayed neutral in the first civil war. He is said to be buried in Medina, and a mosque in Guangzhou is attributed to him by a tradition historians do not accept.

• Lived: 595 CE – 674 CE
• Nationality: Arab
• Roles: military