Abu Sufyan ibn Harb

Led Quraysh at Uhud and the Trench, and entered Islam the night before the Opening.

The account

For two decades the manager of Makkah's war: the caravan that triggered Badr, command at Uhud, the grand alliance of the Khandaq. Yet his answers to Heraclius, recorded in Bukhari, testified to the Prophet's ﷺ truthfulness even while he fought him: "We have never known him to lie." On the eve of the Opening, brought in by Abbas, he submitted; and the Prophet honored the old chief's pride into safety: "Whoever enters the house of Abu Sufyan is safe." At Hunayn he stood firm holding the Prophet's stirrup, and at Ta'if and Yarmuk he gave his eyes in Allah's cause, the last chapters rewriting the first.

The facts

BeforeUhud & Khandaq commander
TestimonyTo Heraclius: “he does not lie”
AfterFought at Yarmuk, blinded

Read beside it

The words

On the Path

People beside it

Places

Ta'ifThe city of stones that became a city of Islamالطائف

BeforeAl-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib AfterUthman ibn Talha

On the Companions page The Path