ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qays (1) ibn Khālid al-Anṣārī took part in the Battle of Badr.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sahl (2) ibn Zayd al-Anṣārī al-Ḥārithī fought at Uḥud and in the campaigns that followed. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr maintains that he was also present at Badr. After the death of ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān, ʿUmar appointed him governor of Basra. He was once bitten by a snake, whereupon ʿImārah ibn Ḥazm treated him with ruqyah (a protective recitation). He is the one who said to Abū Bakr—when two grandmothers came before the caliph and he allotted one-sixth of the estate to the maternal grandmother while leaving out the paternal grandmother—“You have given a share to the one who, were she to die, the deceased would not inherit from her, and you have left out the one who, were she to die, he would inherit from her.” Abū Bakr therefore made the two grandmothers share the one-sixth equally.

ʿAmr ibn Sarāqah (3) ibn al-Muʿtamir al-ʿAdawī, the brother of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sarāqah, was an eminent Companion who fought at Badr. It is related that he was once so hungry he tied a stone to his stomach and walked the whole day until nightfall. Some Arabs then hosted him and those with him; when he had eaten his fill he said to his companions, “I used to think the legs carry the belly, but now I see the belly carries the legs.”

ʿUmayr ibn Saʿd al-Anṣārī (4) al-Awsī was a Companion of high rank and great esteem. Because of his outstanding asceticism and worship he was called “a man woven of his own cloth.” He fought in the conquest of Syria under Abū ʿUbaydah and served as deputy governor of Ḥimṣ and Damascus during the caliphate of ʿUmar. When ʿUthmān became caliph he relieved him of office and gave Muʿāwiyah authority over the whole of Syria. Numerous reports are related about him, too many to recount here.

ʿUrwah ibn Ḥizām (5), Abū Saʿīd al-ʿUdhri, was a poet consumed with love for his cousin ʿAfrāʾ bint Muhājir, about whom he composed poetry; his passion for her became famous. When her family moved from the Ḥijāz to Syria he followed them and asked his uncle for her hand, but the uncle refused because of his poverty and married her to another cousin. ʿUrwah died for love of her. His story is recorded in the book “The Deaths of Lovers” (6). Among the verses he composed for her are these (7), in the ṭawīl metre:

“It is only that I glimpse her suddenly—
I am struck dumb, hardly able to reply;
My judgment, once so firm, deserts me,
And I forget all I had prepared while she was away.” (8)

Quṭbah ibn ʿĀmir (9), Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī, was present both at the Pledge of ʿAqabah and at Badr.