Khalid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi (Arabic: خالد بن الوليد بن المغيرة المخزومي) was an Arab Muslim commander in the service of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Rashidun caliphs Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) and Umar (r. 634–644). He played the leading military role in the Ridda wars against rebel tribes in Arabia in 632–633 and the early Muslim conquests of Sasanian Iraq in 633–634 and Byzantine Syria in 634–638.
A horseman of the Quraysh tribe's aristocratic Makhzum clan, which ardently opposed Muhammad, Khalid played the instrumental role in defeating the Muslims at the Battle of Uhud in 625. Following his conversion to Islam in 627 or 629, he was made a commander by Muhammad, who bestowed on him the title Sayf Allah ('the Sword of God'). Khalid coordinated the safe withdrawal of Muslim troops during the abortive expedition to Mu'ta against the Arab allies of the Byzantines in 629 and led the Bedouin contingents of the Muslim army during the capture of Mecca and the Battle of Hunayn in c. 630. After Muhammad's death, Khalid was appointed to suppress or subjugate Arab tribes in Najd and the Yamama (both regions in central Arabia) opposed to the nascent Muslim state, defeating the rebel leaders Tulayha at the Battle of Buzakha in 632 and Musaylima at the Battle of Aqraba in 633.
Khalid subsequently moved against the largely Christian Arab tribes and the Sasanian Persian garrisons of the Euphrates valley in Iraq. He was reassigned by Abu Bakr to command the Muslim armies in Syria and he led his men there on an unconventional march across a long, waterless stretch of the Syrian Desert, boosting his reputation as a military strategist. As a result of decisive victories against the Byzantines at Ajnadayn (634), Fahl (634 or 635), Damascus (634–635) and Yarmouk (636), the Muslims under Khalid conquered most of Syria. He was afterward demoted from the high command by Umar for a range of causes cited by traditional Islamic and modern sources. Khalid continued service as the key lieutenant of his successor Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah in the sieges of Homs and Aleppo and the Battle of Qinnasrin, all in 637–638, which collectively precipitated the retreat from Syria of imperial Byzantine troops under Emperor Heraclius. Umar dismissed Khalid from his governorship of Qinnasrin afterward and he died in Medina or Homs in 642.
Khalid is generally considered by historians to be one of early Islam's most seasoned and accomplished generals and he is commemorated throughout the Arab world until the present day. The Islamic tradition credits Khalid for his battlefield tactics and effective leadership of the early Muslim conquests, but accuses him of illicitly executing Arab tribesmen who had accepted Islam, namely members of the Banu Jadhima during the lifetime of Muhammad and Malik ibn Nuwayra during the Ridda wars, and moral and fiscal misconduct in Syria. His military fame disturbed some of the pious, early Muslim converts, including Umar, who feared it could develop into a personality cult.
Khālid ibn al-Walīd, byname Sīf, or Sayf, Allāh (Arabic: “Sword of God”), (died 642), one of the two generals (with ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ) of the enormously successful Islamic expansion under the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate successors, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.
Although he fought against Muhammad at Uḥud (625), Khālid was later converted (627/629) and joined Muhammad in the conquest of Mecca in 629; thereafter he commanded a number of conquests and missions in the Arabian Peninsula. After the death of Muhammad, Khālid recaptured a number of provinces that were breaking away from Islam. He was sent northeastward by the caliph Abū Bakr to invade Iraq, where he conquered Al-Ḥīrah. Crossing the desert, he aided in the conquest of Syria; and, though the new caliph, ʿUmar, formally relieved him of high command (for unknown reasons), Khālid remained the effective leader of the forces facing the Byzantine armies in Syria and Palestine.
