Khalid ibn al-Walid beat Muhammad's forces before becoming the Sword of God
At the Battle of Uhud in 625, a Meccan cavalry commander found a gap in the Muslim lines and turned the fight. A few years later that same man converted, earned the title Sword of God from Muhammad, and led the campaigns that brought most of the Levant under Muslim rule.
Khalid belonged to the Banu Makhzum, an aristocratic clan of the Quraysh credited with opening Meccan trade to Yemen and Abyssinia. His father, an arbiter of local disputes, is identified by several early historians as a man who mocked Muhammad, and his cousin Abu Jahl organised the boycott of Muhammad's clan. Through his mother, of the nomadic Banu Hilal, Khalid came to know Bedouin life well. About twenty-five of his cousins died fighting the Muslims at Badr in 624.
At Uhud he led the right wing of Meccan cavalry. Instead of charging uphill, he tried to swing around the mountain, and when most Muslim archers left their posts to raid the Meccan camp, he struck the exposed rear. He converted in 627 or 629, extracted Muslim troops safely from a clash with the Byzantines at Mu'ta, and led Bedouin contingents at the taking of Mecca and at Hunayn.
After Muhammad's death he crushed tribal revolts in the Ridda Wars of 632 and 633, then campaigned against Sasanian garrisons along the Euphrates. Sent to Syria by Abu Bakr, he led his army on a daring crossing of a long waterless stretch of desert. Victories over the Byzantines at Ajnadayn, Damascus and finally the Yarmouk in 636 opened most of the Levant to the Muslim army.
The caliph Umar then removed him from high command, partly out of fear that his fame might grow into a personality cult; some accounts say the two men looked and sounded so alike that people with weak eyesight mixed them up. Khalid served on as chief lieutenant to Abu Ubayda at Homs and Aleppo before his death in 642. Historians rank him among Islam's most accomplished generals, yet accounts diverge on episodes such as his execution of Malik ibn Nuwayra, and Sunni tradition honours him while Shia tradition is more critical.
Source: Khalid ibn al-Walid
