— with a yellowish tint, so that his beard looked like gold. (1)
I say: that was deemed appropriate in those days; were someone to do it today, it would be considered objectionable.
ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn ʿUmar narrated, through al-Zuhrī, from ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qāriẓ: he heard Muʿāwiyah on the pulpit of Medina say, “Where are your jurists, O people of Medina? I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbid this qussa (hairpiece).” He then placed it on his head, and I have never seen anything—whether on a bride or on anyone else—more becoming than it was on Muʿāwiyah. (2)
Abān ibn ʿUthmān related: When Muʿāwiyah was a young boy walking with his mother Hind, he stumbled, and she said, “Get up; may Allah not raise you!” A Bedouin who was watching remarked, “Why do you say that to him? By Allah, I believe he will one day lead his people.” She replied, “May he never be raised up if the only people he comes to rule are his own.” (3)
Aslam, the freedman of ʿUmar, said: “Muʿāwiyah came to us, and he was the fairest-skinned and most handsome of people.”
(1) Abu Zurʿa cites it in his History of Damascus, 1:349, on the authority of Abu Mus-hir with the same chain of transmission.
(2) ʿAbd al-Jabbar b. ʿUmar—al-Aʾili, Abu al-Sabah, a freedman of the Umayyads—is weak, whereas the rest of the transmitters are trustworthy. The report is also found in Ibn ʿAsakir, 16:338b–339a; Malik, al-Muwattaʾ, 3:323, 124; al-Bukhari, Sahih, 10:314–315 (Book of Dress, chapter: Joining Hair); Muslim, Sahih, no. 2127 (Book of Dress and Adornment, chapter: The Prohibition of Hair Extensions); Abu Dawud, no. 4167; al-Tirmidhi, no. 2781; and Ahmad, 4:95—each through various chains from Humayd b. ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf, who heard Muʿawiya b. Abi Sufyan in the year of his pilgrimage, standing on the pulpit and holding a lock of hair taken from a guard, say: “Where are your scholars? I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbid things like this and say, ‘The Children of Israel were ruined only when their women adopted them.’”
Muslim also transmits it (no. 124) through Qatada, from Saʿid b. al-Musayyib, who reports Muʿawiya saying one day: “You have introduced an evil fashion; the Prophet ﷺ forbade falsehood.”
Al-Nasaʾi (8:144) records it via Ibn Wahb—Makhrama b. Bukayr—from his father—from Saʿid al-Maqburi, who said: “I saw Muʿawiya b. Abi Sufyan on the pulpit holding a bundle of women’s hair and saying, ‘Why do Muslim women place such things on their heads? I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “Any woman who adds to her head hair that is not hers is committing falsehood.”’ The term qussa (with a damma on the qaf) denotes a lock of hair.
(3) Ibn ʿAsakir, 16:339a.