Saʿīd ibn Sālim—the close companion of al-Awzāʿī—recounted: “Abū Marḥūm arrived from Mecca to visit al-Awzāʿī and brought him some choice gifts. Al-Awzāʿī said to him, ‘If you wish, I shall accept them, and you will not hear a single word from me; but if you prefer, take back your gift and listen.’

Walīd ibn Muslim related: I asked Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, ‘Which of the Successors (tābiʿīn) did you meet who used to go early to the Friday prayer?’ He replied, ‘Have you not seen Abū ʿAmr?’ I said, ‘Indeed.’ He said, ‘Then he alone suffices for all who came before him. Follow him, for what an excellent example he is.’

Mūsā ibn Aʿyan reported that al-Awzāʿī said, “We used to laugh and joke, but when people began to take us as models I feared that even smiling might no longer be permissible for us.”

Walīd ibn Mazīd said, “I saw al-Awzāʿī wearing a turban and he did not allow any part of it to hang down.”

Some ḥadīth scholars have stated that the musnad traditions narrated by al-Awzāʿī number about one thousand, while his mursal and mawqūf reports run into the thousands.

Among the Syrians he occupies the same rank that Maʿmar (1) holds among the Yemenis, al-Thawrī (2) among the Kufans, Mālik among the Medinese, al-Layth among the Egyptians, and Ḥammād ibn Salamah (3) among the Basrans.

Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Qarāfī informed us, saying: al-Mubārak ibn Abī al-Jūd in Baghdad informed us; Aḥmad ibn Abī Ghālib al-Zāhid informed us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAlī al-Anmāṭī informed us; Shaykh Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhlis narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Dāwūd ibn Rushayd narrated to us; Shuʿayb ibn Isḥāq narrated to us, from al-Awzāʿī, who said: “Yaḥyā ibn…"