Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (1) also transmitted—through a chain whose narrators are unknown—from Abū al-Zubayr, from Jābir, in a marfūʿ report:

“When you see Muʿāwiyah delivering a sermon from my pulpit, then accept him (2), for he is trustworthy and reliable.”

Abū Zurʿah al-Dimashqī related, through Duḥaym, from al-Walīd, from al-Awzāʿī, who said:

I lived through Muʿāwiyah’s caliphate and found a number of Companions alive in it: Usāmah, Saʿd, Jābir, Ibn ʿUmar, Zayd ibn Thābit, [and Maslamah (3) ibn Mukhal­lad, Abū Saʿīd, Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj, Abū Umāmah] (4) and Anas ibn Mālik, together with men many times more than those we have named. They were lamps of guidance and vessels of knowledge; they had witnessed the Qur’an’s revelation (5) and learned its interpretation from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Of the generation that followed them in righteousness—as Allah willed—were al-Miswar ibn Makhramah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Aswad ibn ʿAbd Yaghūth, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, [and ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr] (6) and ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥayriz, along with their peers. Not one of them ever withdrew his hand from the united body (jamāʿah) of the Ummah of Muhammad ﷺ.

Abū Zurʿah also reported, through Duḥaym, from al-Walīd, from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who said:

When ʿUthmān was killed, the people had no army campaigning until the Year of Unity; then Muʿāwiyah sent forces against the Byzantines on sixteen expeditions: a detachment would depart in summer, winter in Byzantine territory, return, and be followed by another. Among those he sent was his son Yazīd, accompanied by a multitude of Companions. They crossed the strait, fought the people of Constantinople at its gate, and then returned with them to Syria (7). Muʿāwiyah’s final injunction was: “Tighten the noose around the Byzantines.”

Ibn Wahb narrated—from Yūnus, from al-Zuhrī—that Muʿāwiyah performed the ḥajj with the people twice during his caliphate; his rule lasted twenty years minus one month.

Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh said: Muʿāwiyah led the people in the pilgrimage in the year 44 and again in the year 50.

Another reported: in the year 51. Allah knows best.

Al-Layth ibn Saʿd said: Bukayr narrated to us, from Busur (8) ibn Saʿīd, that Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said: “I have not seen anyone, after ʿUthmān, who judged more justly than the master of this gate”—meaning Muʿāwiyah.