Ibn Jarīr also reports (1) that ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ once arrived in the company of a delegation from Egypt to meet Muʿāwiyah. On the way he told them, “When you are ushered in before Muʿāwiyah, do not greet him with the title of caliph, for he dislikes that.” ʿAmr went in ahead of them; whereupon Muʿāwiyah said to his chamberlain, “Admit them, but frighten them a little as they enter so that they feel over-awed. I suspect ʿAmr has coached them in something.” When the delegation was brought before him—having already been given a rough reception—each man, as he entered, said, “al-salāmu ʿalayka yā Rasūl Allāh” (“peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah”). After the audience ʿAmr rose to leave and exclaimed, “May Allah disgrace you! I told you not to greet him as caliph, and you went and greeted him as prophet!” (2)

It is also related that a man asked Muʿāwiyah to help him construct his house by supplying twelve thousand wooden beams. Muʿāwiyah asked, “Where is your house?” “In Basra,” the man replied. “And how wide is it?” “Two farsakhs by two farsakhs.” Muʿāwiyah said, “Then do not say, ‘My house is in Basra’; rather say, ‘Basra is in my house!’” (3)

Another report tells of a man who came in with his son and the two of them sat at Muʿāwiyah’s banquet spread. The boy ate ravenously, and Muʿāwiyah kept an eye on him while the father tried, unsuccessfully, to curb him. When they left, the father scolded the lad and forbade him to come again. Later Muʿāwiyah asked the man, “Where is that tilqāma (4) of yours?” “He has taken ill,” the father answered. Muʿāwiyah remarked, “I knew that the way he ate would bring on a sickness.”

On another occasion Muʿāwiyah looked at a man who stood before him wearing a coarse ʿabāʾa (cloak) and began to treat him with disdain. The man said, “Commander of the Believers, you are not speaking to the cloak; it is the person inside it who addresses you.” (5)

Muʿāwiyah also said, “The best of people is he who, when given, is grateful; when tested, is patient; when angered, restrains himself; when able to punish, forgives; when he promises, fulfills; and when he errs, seeks forgiveness.” (6)

A man from Madinah once wrote to Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān — may Allah be pleased with him — saying:

When men have borne their offspring in turn,
And age makes all their sinews shake and burn,
And maladies return and then return,
They are but crops whose harvest is adjourned.