Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas

Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas (c. 595–674 AD) was one of the earliest converts to Islam, an archer renowned as 'the first to shoot an arrow in the cause of Islam', and one of the ten promised Paradise (al-Ashara al-Mubashshara). Appointed supreme commander of the Muslim armies on the Persian front by Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, Sa'd led the historic campaign that brought down the ancient Sasanian Empire.

In 636 AD, at the monumental four-day Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in Iraq, Sa'd—directing operations from a sickbed rampart due to severe boils—deployed archers to blind and neutralize the Persian war elephants, slaying Sasanian supreme general Rostam Farrokhzad and routing their army. Pursuing the retreat across the Tigris, he captured the Sasanian imperial capital of Ctesiphon (al-Mada'in) and founded the strategic garrison city of Kufa, serving as its first governor.