Abdullah, the son of the famous jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal, once said:
"I asked my father about Ali and Muawiya. He said: "Know that Ali has many enemies and no matter how much they tried to find any fault or flaws in him, they couldn't. That is why they gathered around one who had battled against him and provoked him to deceive and plot against Ali."
Hakem says:
"I heard Abu al-Abbas Muhammed bin Ya'qub bin Yusuf saying: "I heard my father saying: "I heard Is'haq bin Ibrahim Handhali saying: "There is no authentic hadith on the virtue of Muawiya."
The jurist Ibn Hajar Asqalani writes:
"...the disputed virtues narrated about Muawiya aren't authentic and have no basis. Many hadiths have been narrated about the virtues of Muawiya, none of which bear a decent and acceptable chain of narrators." Is'haq ibn Rahwiyyah and Nisa'i and others share the same view." Fath al-Bari (7:83)
The muhaddith Tirmidhi narrated one hadith:
"Oh Allah, make him a guider and a guided one and in a way others are guided by him" saying the hadith is "hasan sahih" (authentic).
The jurist Ibn Taymiyyah in his book of Minhaj (2:207) wrote,
"Some attributed certain virtues to Muawiya and narrated hadiths from the prophet (pbuh) about him which are all lies."
Firuz Abadi, at the end of his book of Safar al-Sa'adah and Ajaluni in his book of Kashf al-Khafa', pg. 420, in the chapters of Muawiya's virtues, says:
"There is no authentic hadith in this regard."
In Umdah al-Qari, Eyni said,
"If you say there are many hadiths on the virtues of Muawiya, I will say yes there are, but none of them have authentic chains of narrators and are unreliable.
Imam Shawkani wrote in Fawa'id al-Majmu'ah:
"Those preserving the ahadith all agree there is no authentic hadith on the virtues of Muawiya."
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