Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas

Sa'd accepted Islam at the age of seventeen, making him one of the youngest early converts. He was the seventh person to embrace Islam. When his mother Hamnah bint Sufyan heard of his conversion, she swore she would neither eat nor drink nor sit in the shade until he renounced Islam. Sa'd told her: 'O mother, even if you had a hundred souls and they left you one by one, I would not leave this religion.' She eventually relented, and the verse was revealed: 'And if they strive to make you associate with Me that of which you have no knowledge, do not obey them' (29:8). He was the first person to shoot an arrow in defence of Islam, during a skirmish before Badr. The Prophet said to him: 'Shoot, Sa'd! May my father and mother be your ransom!' — a phrase the Prophet used for no one else. The Prophet also made du'a: 'O Allah, answer Sa'd when he supplicates You' — and it was known that Sa'd's du'a was never rejected. Umar appointed him as the commander of the Muslim army at the Battle of Qadisiyyah (15 AH), where he defeated the Persian Sassanid empire and conquered their capital Ctesiphon. He was the last of the ten promised Paradise to die.