ive been thinking of this for a long time just cant get whos better plus probabaly there r commanders i never heard of so lets spark a long lasting disscusion but id go for saladin or khalid ibn al walid or omar ibn al khattab

I'm no student of Islamic warfare, but I think that Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, (Saladin) would have to be up near the top. He was certainly a man centuries ahead of his time.

Most sucsessfull: Saladin.
Best: Glubb Pasha.

1. Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, or Glubb Pasha to the Arabs was a British Christian officer attached to the army of King Faisal, the Sheriff of Mecca. He organized the famed Arab Legion now of Jordan.

2. Muslim history is full of exceptionally brilliant military commanders. The list would be very long. Khalid bin Walid, perhaps the best cavalry commander the world has seen before mechanization. Tariq bin Zyad, the Berber general who conquered Spain and Portugal. His superior Musa bin Nusayer.Bu Ali of Spain. Salahuddin has been mentioned. Muhammad bin Qasim who conquered Sind. Babr, the founder of the Mughal dynasty. His descendants Akbar and Aurangjeb were brilliant in the field. Taimur Lang who conquered everything around. Byazid and a host of Turkish generals and Sultans who commanded troops in the field magnificently. Anwar Pasha and Mustafa Kamal were exceptional military commanders in modern Turkey. Many Egyptian generals could be named. There are Chinese Muslim generals and admirals who commanded Muslim troops under Kublai Khan onward.

3. Unfortunately for the Muslims, almost all history written in Western languages was commissioned by the Church or the Christian King. We have therefore a gap there, and worse, Muslim history and achievements have been ignored or downplayed, according to the great Palestinian Christian writer Eduard Said. For instance, the history of Crusades is different when looked at from the Arab/Muslim side.

As you say, the history we (in the West) read is from a Western perspective. I read a lot of history, especially military history, and I would have to "google" most of the names you give us.

"The historian must have no country." John Quincy Adams

Originally Posted by rocky71

---snip--- Mustafa Kamal were exceptional military commanders in modern Turkey.

Without a doubt he was a "Good" military man, but his real strength lay in his statesmanship, where I would put him right up with the world's best.

they are lot of commanders in Arab and Islamic world starting by
1 Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
2 Khalid ibn al-Walid (the Drawn Sword of God)
3 Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib
4 Al Qaqaa Ibn Omar
5 Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb
6 Omar Mukhtar ( Lion of the Desert )

Guess there's some controversy as to Tamerlane being Muslim or not...

Agbar the great. He excelled in training, tactics, estrategy, logistics, armament, diplomacy and administration.
He used breech loading steel cannon on armored elephants centuries before Napoleon and Lee used bronze cannon. He used high carbon steel muskets capable of greater pressure and range than any Napoleonic musket.

Khalid ibn al walid is the best of them all
he never lost a battle
omar ibn al khattab had to remove him from leading the army so people don't credit the victory for khalid rather than god (which was starting to happen at the time)
an example of how smart he is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mu%27tah