on my pulpit, then accept him, for he is trustworthy and reliable.(1)
This is a fabrication.
It is also said that the person meant is Muʿāwiyah ibn Tabūh, the hypocrite.
Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz said: “After ʿUthmān was killed and discord spread, the people undertook no military expeditions until they rallied around Muʿāwiyah; he then dispatched them on campaign several times.
“He later sent his son out with a company of Companions, both by land and by sea. He ferried them across the strait and they fought the people of Constantinople at its very gate, then returned.”(2)
Al-Layth narrated from Bukayr,(3) from Busr ibn Saʿīd, that Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said, “After ʿUthmān I have not seen anyone who adjudicates more justly than the man at this door—meaning Muʿāwiyah.”(4)
Abū Bakr ibn Abī Maryam reported from Thābit, the client of Sufyān: I heard Muʿāwiyah say, “I am not the best among you; among you are men better than I—such as Ibn ʿUmar, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, and others. Yet perhaps I am the most unrelenting against your enemy, the most beneficent to you in governance, and the kindest of you in character.”(5)
ʿAqīl and Maʿmar narrated from al-Zuhrī, who said: ʿUrwah told me that al-Miswar ibn Makhramah