Among them was al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah al-Thaqafī.

He held the rank of the Prophet’s arm-bearer, standing before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the day of al-Ḥudaybiyyah with his sword raised. Stationed at the Prophet’s head inside the tent, he watched as his uncle, ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd al-Thaqafī—who had come as an envoy—reached out toward the Prophet’s beard, as the Arabs customarily did when addressing someone. Each time ʿUrwah extended his hand, al-Mughīrah rapped it with the hilt of his sword and said, “Keep your hand away from the beard of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ before it never returns to you!”—the remainder of the report being as we have already cited.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd and others relate that he took part in every campaign with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The Prophet later sent him, together with Abū Sufyān, to lead the mission that destroyed the idol worshipped by the people of al-Ṭāʾif, known as al-Rabbah (al-Lāt). He was counted among the shrewdest of the Arabs.

Al-Shaʿbī said, “I heard him declare, ‘No one has ever outwitted me.’” Al-Shaʿbī also reports that Qabīṣah ibn Jābir remarked, “I travelled with al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah; if a city had eight gates and one could leave each gate only by cunning, he would find a way out of all eight.”

Al-Shaʿbī further stated, “The foremost judges are four: ʿUmar, ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, and Abū Mūsā; and the master strategists are four: Muʿāwiyah, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, al-Mughīrah, and Ziyād.” Al-Zuhrī added, “The strategists are five: Muʿāwiyah, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, al-Mughīrah, and two who sided with ʿAlī—Qays ibn Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Budayl ibn Waraqāʾ.”

Imām Mālik said, “Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah was a man who married often.” He used to say, “A man with only one wife—when she menstruates, he is idle with her; when she falls ill, he is ill with her. A man with two wives stands between two blazing fires!” Consequently, he would marry four women at once and then divorce them all. Others report that he married eighty women; some say three hundred.