Amr ibn Abd Wudd

ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Wudd was a senior elder of Quraysh renowned for his ferocity in battle, having inflicted numerous wounds and killed several opponents at the Battle of Badr. During the Battle of the Trench (5 AH), he was among a small group of Qurashī horsemen who managed to leap their horses across an undefended stretch of the trench, wearing the red turban that traditionally signaled a fighter's readiness to fight to the death. Once across, he issued a repeated challenge for single combat (mubārazah), which ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib answered, the Prophet ﷺ initially holding ʿAlī back twice given ʿAmr's fearsome reputation and decades of experience against ʿAlī's relative youth, before permitting him to fight on the third request. ʿAmr, recognizing ʿAlī as a young man he had known since childhood, tried to dissuade him from the fight out of a lack of any personal desire to kill him; ʿAlī refused to withdraw. In the ensuing duel, ʿAlī deflected ʿAmr's blow with his shield, which broke in half from the force, and in the same motion struck ʿAmr fatally in the neck, ending the fight in a single exchange. News of ʿAlī's victory reached the watching armies only through his takbīr rising from the dust the two horses had kicked up.