Zuhayr ibn Qays

During that campaign, he temporarily retook Kairouan, the Arabs' capital in Ifriqiya, and killed the Berber chief Kasila, but was slain by Byzantine raiders on his way back to Barqa.

Zuhayr belonged to the Bali tribe, itself part of the larger Quda'a confederation that was present throughout Syria and the northern Hejaz.

[2] As Uqba campaigned in the region of Sous (in modern-day Morocco), he ordered Zuhayr to return with the majority of the Arab troops to Kairouan to defend the city from an impending Byzantine attack.

[2][3] Panic ensued among the Arab troops of Kairouan; the majority sided with Hanash al-San'ani, who advocated for withdrawal to Barqa (Cyrenaica), while Zuhayr favored resistance.

[3] In that incident, the historian Reif Georges Khoury writes that Zuhayr "died valiantly with 70 of his companions before the rest of the troops could come to his aid".