…a man with broad feet and a thick gullet, who eats yet is never satiated—he is Muʿāwiyah.” (1)
Such is the wording in this version. In another narration with the same chain it reads: “The days and nights will not pass away until this community is united under Muʿāwiyah.”
Al-Bayhaqī also relates—through Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muhājir, who is weak—from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿUmayr that Muʿāwiyah said: “By Allah, nothing drove me to seek the caliphate except the statement of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to me: ‘O Muʿāwiyah! Should you come to rule, then excel.’” (2)
Al-Bayhaqī adds: It has corroborating reports. One of them is the ḥadīth of ʿAmr ibn Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ, from his grandfather Saʿīd: Muʿāwiyah once took the riding-crop and followed the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; the Prophet looked at him and said, “O Muʿāwiyah, if you are ever placed in authority, fear Allah and be just.” Muʿāwiyah remarked, “Ever since then I have been certain I would be tried with office because of that word of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” (3)
Another corroboration is the ḥadīth transmitted by al-Thawrī, from Thawr ibn Yazīd, from Rāshid ibn Saʿd al-Miqrāʾī, from Muʿāwiyah, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “If you probe into people’s private affairs you will corrupt them—or come close to corrupting them.” Abū al-Dardāʾ would add, “That single word Muʿāwiyah heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and Allah made it beneficial to him.” Abū Dāwūd recorded it. (4)
Al-Bayhaqī further narrates, through Hushaym, from al-ʿAwwām ibn Ḥawshab, from Sulaymān ibn Abī Sulaymān, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The caliphate is in Medina, and the kingdom is in Syria.” (5)
Imām Aḥmad (6) reported: Isḥāq ibn ʿĪsā told us; Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah told us, from Zayd ibn Wāqid; Basr ibn ʿUbayd Allah narrated to me, and Abū Idrīs al-Khawlānī narrated to me from Abū al-Dardāʾ, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “While I was asleep I saw the pillar of the Book being lifted—it was taken from beneath my head. I feared it might be removed altogether, so I followed it with my eyes, and it was planted in Syria. Truly, when tribulations arise, faith will be in Syria.”
Here, too, al-Bayhaqī relates it through Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf, from Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah.