Al-Walid ibn Uqba

Walid ibn Uqba (Arabic: وليد بن عقبة) was one of the companions of Muhammad.

Biography

Title

He belonged to the Quraish tribe. He accepted Islam after the Treaty of Hudybia. He was brave and courageous and a good warrior. For this Muhammed gave him the title of "Saif Allah" which means "Sword of Allah".

Family

He was the son of Uqbah ibn Abu Mu'ayt, a man who tried to kill Muhammad and finally died as a non-Muslim, and thus the brother of Umm Kulthum bint Uqba. He was also a half-brother of Uthman.

Generalship

Dr. Ali M. Sallabi described him as follows:

He was regarded as trusted and reliable by both of these two caliphs, one of those to whom important tasks could be entrusted....Al- Waleed was one of the most beloved to the people, and one of the kindest to them. For five years there was no gate at his house.

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Ibn Taymiya, a 13th century Sunni Islamic scholar in his A Great Compilation of Fatwa:

The Companions would pray behind people whom they knew to be open transgressors, such as when Abd-Allah ibn Mas'ud and other Companions would pray behind Walid ibn 'Uqba ibn Abi Mu'it, who may have recently drunken alcohol (when he was praying) and would wind up praying four rakaats.

Historian Muheeb Al-Deen Al-Khatib puts this event in the following context:

As for the additional material that is narrated in the report of Muslim, that someone came to al-Waleed when he had prayed Fajir with two rak'ahs and he said, "Do you want more?", and according to some of the reports narrated by Ahmad, he had prayed four rak'ahs - nothing was proven from the testimony of witnesses. These are the words of Hudayn, the narrator of the story, but Hudayn was not one of the witnesses and he did not narrate it from any witness or from any known person. He was not in Kufah at the time of the alleged incident and this part of the report carries no weight.

See also

• Islam