[3] The historian al-Baladhuri (d. 892) asserts that Amr was Uthman's eldest son to have survived the caliph, who was killed in 656, and the historian Mus'ab al-Zubayri (d. 851) holds that Amr was the eldest of Uthman's sons to leave descendants,[4][5] while the historians Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 1492) and al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) attribute both facts to Umar.
[4] Al-Zubayri further relates that Uthman privately named Amr as the second-in-line to succeed him as caliph after the leading companion of Muhammad, al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam.
[7] The modern historian Asad Q. Ahmed views these claims as difficult to "verify or refute".
[8] Amr's role in the Battle of al-Harra in 683 between the Syrian army of Mu'awiya's son and successor Yazid I (r. 680–683) and the people of Medina who declared rebellion against the caliph is inconsistently reported in the traditional sources: al-Baladhuri holds that Amr fought alongside the Medinese and was consequently castigated and flogged by the victorious Syrian general Muslim ibn Uqba; Awana ibn al-Hakam holds that Amr was not expelled with the rest of the Umayyads of Medina, remained in the city and was punished by Ibn Uqba; while Abu Mikhnaf claims Amr was expelled with the Umayyads but refused to divulge intelligence about Medina's defenses as requested by Ibn Uqba.
[10] Amr had a son named Umar from a slave woman; though there is scant mention of Umar in the historical record, his son Abd Allah al-Arji became a well-known Umayyad poet in Medina, fought in the anti-Byzantine campaigns of the Umayyad general Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, was imprisoned for wine drinking and died in a Medina jail during the reign of Caliph Hisham.