for him a debt of five-hundred thousand. When his creditors pressed him, he asked them to grant a delay until he could go to Muʿāwiyah and request an advance on his stipend. So he rode to him, and Muʿāwiyah said, “What has brought you here, son of Jaʿfar?” He replied, “A debt—my creditors are urgent.” Muʿāwiyah asked, “How much is it?” He said, “Five-hundred thousand.” Muʿāwiyah paid it on his behalf and added, “The annual million will reach you in its due time.”

Ibn Saʿd (1) reports—Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl told us, Abū Hilāl told us, from Qatādah—that Muʿāwiyah said, “How astonishing of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī! He drank a draft of Yemeni honey mixed with the water of Ruma (2) and then passed away.” He then said to Ibn ʿAbbās, “May Allah spare you distress and grief over al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī.” Ibn ʿAbbās answered, “May Allah neither grieve nor distress me so long as Allah preserves the Commander of the Believers.” Muʿāwiyah thereupon gave him one million dirhams together with merchandise and other goods, saying, “Take these and divide them among your family.”

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Madāʾinī relates, on the authority of Salamah ibn Muḥārib: It was said to Muʿāwiyah, “Who is nobler—you or the Banū Hāshim?” He replied, “We had the larger number of notable men, but they were the nobler. Among them was a man unmatched among the sons of ʿAbd Manāf—Hāshim. When he died, we still outnumbered them in notables, yet among them was ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, and we had no peer to him. When he died, we were again the more numerous and the more prominent, and among them there was no one to equal one of us—yet scarcely the blink of an eye had passed before they said, ‘A prophet is from us.’ And a prophet did come, the like of whom neither the former peoples nor the latter have ever heard: Muḥammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Who can attain such excellence and such honor?”

Ibn Abī Khaythamah transmits—Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl told us, Ḥammād ibn Salamah told us, from ʿAlī ibn Yazīd, from Yūsuf ibn Mihrān, from Ibn ʿAbbās—that ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ recounted to Muʿāwiyah a dream in which he saw Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān being called to account for what they had undertaken in their lifetimes, and he saw Muʿāwiyah with two men assigned to him, scrutinizing what he had done in his days. Muʿāwiyah asked him, “And did you see any of the Egyptian dinars there (3)?”

Ibn Durayd reports—through Abū Ḥātim, from al-ʿUtbī—that ʿAmr entered upon Muʿāwiyah when a letter of condolence over the death of one of the Companions had just arrived. Muʿāwiyah said, “Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we return.” ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ then recited:

The righteous die while you still live;
Death passes you by—you never die.

Muʿāwiyah replied:

Do you hope that I shall die while you yet live?
I shall not die until it is you who die. (4)