Ibn al-Sammāk said: Muʿāwiyah used to remark, “I can satisfy everyone except the one who envies a blessing; nothing will content him but its disappearance.”
Al-Zuhrī narrates—through ʿAbd al-Malik from Abū Baḥriyyah—that Muʿāwiyah said: “Noble character rests on four pillars: chastity within Islam, sound management of wealth, loyalty to one’s brothers, and protection of one’s neighbor.”
Abū Bakr al-Hudhalī related: Muʿāwiyah composed verse, but when he assumed the caliphate his family said to him, “You have reached the summit; what need have you now of poetry?” One day he was in a relaxed mood and recited:
I have cut off my folly and set my patience free,
Yet within my forbearance some protest still abides;
Still I respond whenever the languid eyes beckon,
Calling me to meet the needs those eyes confide. (1)
Mughīrah reports from al-Shaʿbī: “The first person to deliver a sermon while seated was Muʿāwiyah, when his flesh increased and his belly grew large.” Likewise it is related from Mughīrah, from Ibrāhīm, that “The first to preach the Friday sermon seated was Muʿāwiyah.”
Abū al-Malīḥ relates from Maymūn: “The first to sit upon the pulpit was Muʿāwiyah, and he first sought the people’s permission to do so.”
Qatādah narrates from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib: “Muʿāwiyah was the first to have both the adhān and the iqāmah called on the days of Fitr and Naḥr.”
Abū Jaʿfar al-Bāqir said: “The gates of Mecca originally had no doors; Muʿāwiyah was the first to equip them with doors.”
Abū al-Yamān reports—through Shuʿayb from al-Zuhrī: “The established sunnah was that a disbeliever does not inherit from a Muslim, nor a Muslim from a disbeliever. Muʿāwiyah was the first to allow a Muslim to inherit from a disbeliever, and the Banū Umayyah judged accordingly after him until ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who returned to the sunnah. Hishām then reinstated what Muʿāwiyah and the Banū Umayyah had ruled after him.” Al-Zuhrī concurred. (2)
It was likewise the sunnah that the blood-money (diyah) for a treaty-protected non-Muslim equalled that of a Muslim, but Muʿāwiyah was the first to reduce it by half and to take the other half for himself.
Ibn Wahb relates—from Mālik, from al-Zuhrī—who said: “I asked Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib about the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. He replied, ‘Listen, O Zuhrī! Whoever dies loving Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī, bearing witness that the ten were promised Paradise, and invoking mercy upon Muʿāwiyah, it is incumbent upon Allah that he not be called to a strict reckoning.’”
Saʿīd ibn Yaʿqūb al-Ṭālaqānī said: I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak say, “A speck of dust in Muʿāwiyah’s nose is better than ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.”