Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Balkhī narrated to me, saying, “I heard Makkī ibn Ibrāhīm relate:
‘We were in the company of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAwn when Bilāl ibn Abī Burdah was mentioned. The people began cursing him and speaking ill of him because of his tyranny and injustice, while Ibn ʿAwn remained silent. They then turned to him and said, “We only brought him up because of the wrong he committed against you.” He replied, “Only two statements will leave my record on the Day of Resurrection: ‘There is no god but Allah,’ and, ‘May Allah curse so-and-so.’”’

Abū Bakr also said: Muḥammad ibn Idrīs told us, ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān told us, from Ibn al-Mubārak, who said:
‘Someone said to Ibn ʿAwn, “Will you not speak up and earn reward?” He answered, “Is it not enough for the speaker simply to come out with nothing against him?”’

Misʿar transmitted from Ibn ʿAwn that he said, ‘Mentioning people is a disease, while mentioning Allah is the cure.’

I (the author) say: Indeed—by Allah—how astonishing, and how ignorant we are! How can we abandon the remedy and rush headlong into the disease? Allah, Exalted is He, says: “So remember Me; I will remember you” (al-Baqarah 2:152); “The remembrance of Allah is greater” (al-ʿAnkabūt 29:45); and, “Those who believe and whose hearts find tranquility in the remembrance of Allah—surely, it is in the remembrance of Allah that hearts find tranquility” (al-Raʿd 13:28). Yet this cannot be attained except by Allah’s enabling grace; whoever persists in supplication and keeps knocking at the door will find it opened for him.

Ibn ʿAwn had been granted forbearance and knowledge, and a pure soul that helped him in piety—blessed indeed is he.

Bakkār ibn Muḥammad al-Sīrīnī said: ‘Whenever Ibn ʿAwn narrated a hadith, he would become so humbled that we felt compassion for him, fearing he might add to it or omit from it.’

He never allowed anyone—whether from the hadith scholars or others—to trail after him. I never saw him argue with anyone or jest with him. I have never seen anyone control his tongue more than he did. I never once saw him enter a bathhouse. He had a Christian agent who collected the income from his land, and in Ramadan he did no more than attend the prescribed prayers, after which he would withdraw to his house.

The Muʿtazilah even carried complaints about him to Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh