Al-Qāḍī al-Māwardī relates in al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyyah: It is told that Muʿāwiyah was once brought a band of thieves. He carried out the penalty on them, cutting off their hands, until only one man remained. The man implored him with these verses:
My right hand, O Commander of the Believers, I shelter it
 in your pardon, lest a punishment sever it.
This hand was fair indeed, had its veil remained intact;
 yet even the fairest must bear a flaw that mars her.
What joy is there in life—once so beloved—
 if my left must part from the company of her right?
Muʿāwiyah said, “What am I to do with you? I have already cut the hands of your companions.” The thief’s mother then exclaimed, “O Commander of the Believers, place this among the sins from which you will one day repent!” Muʿāwiyah let him go, and it became the first ḥadd (prescribed punishment) ever waived in Islam ⦗1⦘.

Ibn ʿAbbās said, “I know how Muʿāwiyah bested the people: whenever they took flight, he alighted, and whenever they alighted, he took flight.”

Another narrator states that Muʿāwiyah wrote to his deputy Ziyād: “It is unwise to govern the people by a single policy. Rule them only with leniency and they grow frivolous; rule them only with harshness and you drive them to ruin. Instead, you be the face of severity, sternness, and roughness, and I the face of gentleness, concord, and mercy—so that if anyone grows afraid, he will find a door through which to enter.”

Abū Mus-hir reports from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: Muʿāwiyah paid on behalf of ʿĀʾishah, Mother of the Believers, a debt of eighteen thousand dinars that she had incurred in giving to others.

Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, on the authority of his father, said: Muʿāwiyah sent one hundred thousand to the Mother of the Believers ʿĀʾishah. She distributed it the very same day until not a single dirham remained. Her servant said, “Could you not have kept one dirham so that we might buy [some meat for you to break your fast with] ⦗2⦘?” She replied, “Had you reminded me, I would have done so.”

ʿAṭāʾ said: While ʿĀʾishah was in Mecca, Muʿāwiyah sent her a necklace valued at one hundred thousand, and she accepted it.

Zayd ibn al-Ḥubbāb narrates from al-Ḥusayn ibn Wāqid, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Buraydah: Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī visited Muʿāwiyah, who said, “I shall reward you with a gift no one before me has ever given,” and he granted him four hundred thousand.

On another occasion al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn came to him together; he immediately bestowed two hundred thousand upon them, saying, “No one before me has ever rewarded them with the like.” Al-Ḥusayn replied, “Nor have you given anyone better than us.”

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā records: Yūsuf ibn Mūsā told us, Jarīr told us, from Mughīrah who said: Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar sent to Muʿāwiyah asking him for funds, so he dispatched to them—indeed, to each of them—one hundred thousand. News of this reached ʿAlī