The killing of Hijr ibn Adi the Kindite by Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan in 51 AH/ 671 AD might be understood as just a classical example of the execution of political opponents in Islamic history. Yet, at the time, it was unprecedented for a Caliph of the Muslims to kill a member of the ummah on the basis of his political position. This made the stance towards it a touchstone for some Islamic groupings. This study reviews the various narrations of this event in medieval Islamic sources, with the objective of understanding how Muslim – especially Sunni – historians handled events the companions of the Prophets took part in (in line with the prevailing Sunni definition of a “companion” or Sahabi of the Prophet). The study also presents – through an analysis of contemporary fatwas on the death of Hijr – an example of ideological readings of history, elucidating at the same time the importance of other Islamic sciences for the study of Islamic history, since these sciences overlap with the presentation and interpretation of history, as defined by a group of conceptions through which the historians of Islam read early Islamic history.