He along with Amr ibn Ma'adi Yakrib were praised by Umar for their strength in battlefield and military wisdom during the Muslim conquest of Persia.
[1] In July 632, Abu Bakr raised an army mainly from Banu Hashim, a clan within the tribe of Quraysh.
They fought the Battle of Zhu Qissa against the forces of Tulayha [5] and his followers as they prepared to launch an attack on Medina during the Ridda wars.
The Tabari chronicle records that he played significant roles in the famous battle of al-Qādisiyyah.
The translation from Arabic language by Andrew Leber said where the contingent of Bani Assad, the clan of Tulayha played significant role on the Yaum Armath (يوم أرماث) or "The Day of Disorder".
[9] At one time recorded he single-handedly rushed enemy ranks in the dark of night and came back with a prisoner of war,[10] Tabari particularly detailed in one chain of Narrations the circumstances in which Tulayha infiltrated the Sassanid camps under the cover of darkness, singlehandedly wreaking havoc in their camps, killing two Sassanid soldiers, taking two horses and then brought back one captive to Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas.
Muhammad Husayn Haykal in his book of Umar biography, also borrowed the same circumstances and wrote the aftermath of the raid as following: Sa'd asking the Sassanid captive about what happened, the latter answered: Since I was a child, I have been told about the stories about heroes.
[citation needed]The Sassanid prisoner later converted to Islam and gave valuable information to the Muslim army.