Saʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl al-ʿAdawī al-Qurashī was an early Companion of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, husband of Fāṭima bint al-Khaṭṭāb, veteran of the Prophetic campaigns after Badr, commander in the early Syrian conquests, transmitter of hadith, and one of the ten Companions explicitly named in sound reports as promised Paradise. His father Zayd ibn ʿAmr was remembered in Sahih al-Bukhari for rejecting idol-sacrifice and seeking the religion of Abraham before Islam. Saʿīd accepted Islam very early, endured Meccan pressure, emigrated to Medina, and was sent with Ṭalḥa ibn ʿUbayd Allāh to gather intelligence on the Quraysh caravan before Badr; he therefore missed the battle itself but was allotted a share. He later served at Ajnadayn, Fihl, Yarmūk and Damascus according to the biographical tradition, withdrew from the civil conflicts of the first fitna, and defended the honour of senior Companions. He died near Medina in 50 or 51 AH, conventionally about 670–671 CE, and was buried at al-Baqīʿ.
600 — 671
Names and variants
Saʿīd ibn Zayd· canonicalSaʿīd ibn Zayd· canonicalسعيد بن زيد· canonicalSaʿīd b. Zayd· transliterationSaid ibn Zayd· variantSa'id ibn Zayd· variantSaeed bin Zaid· variantSaïd ibn Zayd· variantSaʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl· canonicalسعيد بن زيد بن عمرو بن نفيل· canonicalAbū al-Aʿwar· kunyaأبو الأعور· kunyaAbū Thawr· kunyaأبو ثور· kunyaal-ʿAdawī· nisbaالعدوي· nisbaal-Qurashī· nisbaالقرشي· nisba
Saʿīd ibn Zayd
Saʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl al-ʿAdawī al-Qurashī was among the earliest Companions of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He combined early conversion, migration, military service, participation in the Syrian conquests, hadith transmission and a later reputation for avoiding the political violence of the first fitna.
His established name is Saʿīd ibn Zayd. Classical biographical works preserve the fuller form Saʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl and consistently identify him as a Qurashī of Banū ʿAdī.
His lineage is traced through Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl of Banū ʿAdī. The line meets the lineage of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ at the broader Quraysh ancestry through Kaʿb ibn Luʾayy, but Saʿīd was not a member of Banū Hāshim.
Saʿīd belonged to Banū ʿAdī, the same Qurashī clan as ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. His family ties with the al-Khaṭṭāb household later became especially close through marriage.
Saʿīd’s father, Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl, was remembered as a pre-Islamic seeker of monotheism. Sahih al-Bukhari preserves reports about Zayd rejecting the sacrificial practices of Quraysh and searching for the religion of Abraham.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [11] Direct canonical report about Zayd ibn ʿAmr, [12] Direct canonical report on his search for Hanif religion
His father’s rejection of idolatry
Sahih al-Bukhari reports that Zayd ibn ʿAmr refused meat slaughtered for idols and publicly criticized Quraysh for slaughtering animals in names other than Allah’s. Another report portrays him protecting girls from being buried alive.
Later biographies infer that Saʿīd grew up in an unusually anti-idolatrous household because of his father’s convictions. This background helps explain the setting of his early conversion, but it does not make Saʿīd a Muslim before the mission of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [11] Canonical evidence for the father, not a direct childhood report about Saʿīd
Marriage to Fāṭima bint al-Khaṭṭāb
Saʿīd married Fāṭima bint al-Khaṭṭāb, the sister of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. The marriage connected two branches of Banū ʿAdī and placed Saʿīd directly inside the household associated with the famous accounts of ʿUmar’s conversion.
Biographical tradition places Saʿīd among the very early Meccan converts. He and Fāṭima accepted Islam before ʿUmar and remained Muslim despite pressure from their clan.
Some biographical reports count Saʿīd as the twelfth or thirteenth person to accept Islam. Exact numbered lists of the earliest converts vary, so the reliable point is his very early conversion rather than a fixed rank.
The Qur’an does not name Saʿīd ibn Zayd directly. Episodes connected with him, including the conversion setting of ʿUmar, are reconstructed from hadith, sīra and biographical literature rather than from a Qur’anic verse naming Saʿīd.
Saʿīd and his wife faced pressure because of their Islam. The biographical tradition places their household among the early Muslim homes exposed to coercion before the migration to Medina.
Sahih al-Bukhari preserves Saʿīd’s own statement that ʿUmar had bound and pressured him to abandon Islam before ʿUmar himself became Muslim. This establishes direct coercion without requiring every dramatic detail found in later conversion narratives.
Sīra and biographical reports place a decisive stage of ʿUmar’s conversion in the home of Saʿīd and Fāṭima, where Qur’anic recitation was taking place. The detailed sequence belongs to the conversion tradition rather than to the strongest canonical hadith evidence.
Saʿīd emigrated with his wife to Medina and became one of the Muhājirūn. The migration moved him from the persecuted Meccan community into the developing Muslim polity.
Biographical works report that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ paired Saʿīd in brotherhood with Rāfiʿ ibn Mālik; another transmission names Ubayy ibn Kaʿb. The variant is preserved rather than forcing one report into certainty.
Specialist biography describes Saʿīd as trusted with gathering information about Quraysh and other opponents of the Muslim community. His best-known intelligence assignment came immediately before Badr.
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ sent Saʿīd and Ṭalḥa ibn ʿUbayd Allāh to gather information about the Quraysh caravan. They were still away on that mission when the confrontation at Badr occurred, so Saʿīd did not physically fight in the battle.
Biographical reports state that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ allotted Saʿīd a full share of the Badr spoils and reward for the service that had kept him away. Sahih al-Bukhari later refers to him as one of the Badr warriors, reflecting this recognized Badr status despite his mission-related absence from the fighting.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [14] Canonical designation of Saʿīd as a Badr warrior
Battle of Uhud
Saʿīd participated at Uhud after the Badr mission. His presence there belongs to the stable biographical record of his service in the major Prophetic campaigns.
Saʿīd is included in the biographical record of the Companions present at al-Hudaybiyya. His participation is transmitted biographically rather than through a unique canonical report centered on him.
Biographical sources list Saʿīd among those who took part at Hunayn after the conquest of Mecca. This is part of the broader record of his continued military service.
Specialist biography places Saʿīd at the Farewell Pilgrimage. He therefore remained in the close community of the Companions through the final year of the Prophetic period.
After the death of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, Saʿīd is reported to have worked to reduce disputes surrounding the choice of Abū Bakr. These reports place him among the senior Companions concerned with communal stability.
When Abū Bakr considered naming ʿUmar as his successor, biographical sources report that he sought Saʿīd’s opinion among those consulted. The episode reflects Saʿīd’s standing within the early leadership circle.
In the Syrian campaigns, Saʿīd is reported to have commanded cavalry under Khālid ibn al-Walīd at Ajnadayn in 13 AH / 634 CE. This military role is preserved by the historical and biographical tradition rather than by a canonical hadith.
After Ajnadayn, biographical sources report that Saʿīd commanded infantry against Byzantine forces at Fihl. The campaign is remembered as another stage in his service during the conquest of Syria.
Saʿīd is also listed among the commanders who took part at Yarmūk. The attribution belongs to the historical campaign tradition and should not be confused with a direct Prophetic-era hadith report.
Biographical accounts give Saʿīd an important role in the conquest of Damascus. His Syrian service therefore extended beyond individual battles into the consolidation of Muslim control in the region.
The specialist biography reports that Abū ʿUbayda ibn al-Jarrāḥ offered Saʿīd the governorship of Damascus, but Saʿīd preferred continued military service. This episode is biographical and not a canonical hadith claim.
Although Saʿīd was one of the ten promised Paradise and was still alive, ʿUmar did not include him in the six-man council that selected the next caliph. Biographical writers commonly explain this by their close kinship, treating the omission as avoidance of family preference rather than a judgment against Saʿīd.
During ʿUthmān’s caliphate, Saʿīd had land interests in Iraq and spent periods in Kufa. Canonical reports also place him speaking in the mosque of Kufa later in life.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [29] Canonical setting in the mosque of Kufa
Withdrawal from the first fitna
When civil conflict intensified, Saʿīd withdrew toward Medina and avoided participation in the internal wars. His later memory emphasizes refusal to seek power through the bloodshed of the first fitna.
Sahih al-Bukhari records Saʿīd condemning what had been done to ʿUthmān and invoking the image of Mount Uhud shaking at the gravity of the wrongdoing. His statement shows how strongly he rejected the violence surrounding ʿUthmān’s death.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [29] Direct condemnation of what was done to ʿUthmān
Defense of ʿAlī and the Companions
Sunan Abi Dawud records Saʿīd objecting when ʿAlī was abused publicly in Kufa. He responded by recalling the merits of the senior Companions and by refusing to remain silent while they were insulted.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [5] Sound virtues report transmitted in the same context, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [24] Sound report opposing abuse of ʿAlī
Among the ten promised Paradise
Sound reports in Sunan Abi Dawud, Jamiʿ al-Tirmidhi and Sunan Ibn Majah explicitly include Saʿīd among the ten Companions promised Paradise. In several versions Saʿīd himself narrates the list and identifies himself as the final person.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [4] Sahih-graded explicit list, [5] Sound explicit list including Saʿīd, [6] Sahih-graded explicit list, [7] Sound list of those promised Paradise, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier
The report of Mount Ḥirāʾ
A sound report transmitted by Saʿīd recalls Prophet Muhammad ﷺ on Mount Ḥirāʾ with a group of Companions and describes those upon it as a Prophet, an ever-truthful man or martyrs. The report is one of Saʿīd’s best-known narrations concerning the virtues of the senior Companions.
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim preserve a dispute in which Arwā bint Uways accused Saʿīd of taking part of her land. Saʿīd rejected the claim by citing the Prophetic warning against unlawful seizure of land.
Saʿīd transmitted the Prophetic teaching that whoever wrongfully takes even a span of land will bear the burden of seven earths on the Day of Resurrection. Multiple canonical versions preserve this legal and ethical warning.
Sunan Abi Dawud preserves a sound report through Saʿīd stating that whoever brings barren land into cultivation acquires it, while wrongful encroachment creates no right. The narration became part of the legal discussion of reviving uncultivated land.
Saʿīd transmitted a sound report that a person killed while defending property, family, life or religion is a martyr. Parallel sound reports preserve the teaching in major hadith collections.
Sunan Abi Dawud records a sound report through Saʿīd describing unjust attacks on a Muslim’s honour as an especially grave form of wrongdoing. The narration belongs to his ethical hadith legacy.
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim transmit from Saʿīd the saying that truffles are a form of manna and that their liquid is a remedy for the eyes. This is among the small group of his reports preserved in both canonical Sahih collections.
Sunan Abi Dawud preserves a sound report in which Saʿīd recalls Prophet Muhammad ﷺ speaking about a grave future fitna. Saʿīd later related the warning to the killing he had witnessed among his Companions.
Specialist biography attributes forty-eight reports to Saʿīd when repetitions are included, while Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal preserves thirty with repetitions in his Musnad. Exact totals depend on counting method, but his transmitted corpus is relatively compact and appears across the major hadith collections.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [5] Example of Saʿīd’s transmitted corpus, [8] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical biographical dossier, [15] Example in Sahih al-Bukhari, [30] Example in Sahih Muslim
Later life in al-ʿAqīq
In his later years Saʿīd lived at his property in the al-ʿAqīq valley near Medina and engaged in agriculture. This quieter final phase followed decades of migration, campaigning and public service.
The strongest biographical tradition places Saʿīd’s death at al-ʿAqīq in 50 or 51 AH, approximately 670–671 CE. The exact year remains a transmitted variant rather than a certain civil date.
Biographical sources report that his neighbour Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ helped with washing and shrouding him, while ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar led the funeral prayer. These details belong to the established Medinan death tradition.
A competing report places Saʿīd’s death in Kufa and associates his funeral with al-Mughīra ibn Shuʿba. Specialist biography rejects this as less reliable than the account of death at al-ʿAqīq and burial in Medina.
Saʿīd’s life is illuminated unevenly. His early coercion, land dispute, Paradise reports and several transmitted teachings have strong canonical evidence, while the exact conversion rank, Badr intelligence details, Syrian commands and some political episodes depend mainly on sīra and biographical history and should retain that distinction.
Sīra and biographical sources place an important stage of ʿUmar’s conversion in the home of Saʿīd and Fāṭima, but the detailed sequence is not established by the strongest canonical hadith evidence.
Biographical sources report that Saʿīd and Ṭalḥa were away gathering intelligence when Badr was fought, while Prophet Muhammad ﷺ still allotted them a share; Sahih al-Bukhari later calls Saʿīd one of the Badr warriors.
Sources: [1] Specialist/classical dossier, [2] Specialist/classical dossier, [3] Specialist/classical dossier, [8] Specialist/classical dossier, [9] Specialist/classical dossier, [14] Canonical designation as a Badr warrior; mission details come from biography
reported
Specialist biography reports Saʿīd’s participation at Uhud, the Trench, al-Hudaybiyya, the conquest of Mecca, Hunayn, Tabūk and the Farewell Pilgrimage.
Biographical writers report that ʿUmar left Saʿīd out of the six-man succession council despite his status among the ten promised Paradise, commonly explaining this by their close kinship.
Biographical sources report that Saʿīd withdrew from the internal wars of the first fitna and spent his later years away from the struggle for political power.
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim preserve Saʿīd’s dispute with Arwā bint Uways and his citation of the Prophetic prohibition on unlawfully taking land.
Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim establish that Saʿīd transmitted the saying that truffles are a form of manna and their liquid is a remedy for the eyes.
Specialist and classical biographies place Saʿīd’s death near Medina in 50 or 51 AH, approximately 670–671 CE, with 51 AH often preferred but not certain.
Early steadfastness in the Meccan Muslim community
Saʿīd and Fāṭima bint al-Khaṭṭāb are remembered among the early Meccan Muslims who remained committed despite family and clan pressure. Sahih al-Bukhari directly preserves Saʿīd’s recollection that ʿUmar had bound him before ʿUmar’s own conversion, while the broader conversion setting is supplied by sīra and biography. His contribution here is the persistence of an early Muslim household under coercion.
religious · reported
Military service from the Prophetic campaigns to Syria
Saʿīd’s military record spans the Prophetic period after his Badr intelligence mission and continues into the early Syrian conquests. Specialist and classical biographies place him at Uhud, the Trench, al-Hudaybiyya, the conquest of Mecca, Hunayn and Tabūk, then in command roles at Ajnadayn and Fihl and in the campaigns of Yarmūk and Damascus. The Syrian details remain historical-biographical rather than canonical hadith claims.
military · reported
Defending the honour of the senior Companions
In his later years Saʿīd publicly resisted abuse directed at senior Companions. Sahih al-Bukhari records his condemnation of the wrong done to ʿUthmān, and a Sahih-graded report in Sunan Abi Dawud records his protest when ʿAlī was insulted in Kufa. His stance became an example of refusing to turn political conflict into license for slander.
social · established
Preserving legal ethics of land and property
Saʿīd transmitted several reports with direct legal and ethical consequences. Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim preserve his warning against unlawfully taking land, while Sunan Abi Dawud preserves his report on reviving barren land and sound reports preserve the status of a person killed defending property. Together they made his transmission relevant to property, land use and protection from injustice.
scholarly · established
A compact but durable hadith legacy
Saʿīd’s transmitted corpus is not among the largest Companion collections, yet several of his reports became widely cited: the ten promised Paradise, the Mount Ḥirāʾ virtues report, the land-seizure warning, the truffle narration, defense of life and property, and warnings concerning fitna and honour. His legacy illustrates how a relatively small corpus can carry enduring theological, ethical and legal influence.
scholarly · established
Sources
[1]
Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ
al-Dhahabī · Classical biographical source
[2]
Al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā
Ibn Saʿd · Classical biographical source
[3]
Al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba
Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī · Classical companion biographical source
[4]
Jamiʿ al-Tirmidhi 3748
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[5]
Sunan Abi Dawud 4649
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[6]
Sunan Ibn Majah 133
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[7]
Sunan Abi Dawud 4648
Islam Academy Hadith Corpus
[8]
Saʿīd b. Zayd
A. J. Wensinck; G. H. A. Juynboll · Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition · 1995
