Iranian defenders justified the assassination bounty by citing prophetic precedent

Evidence

The traditional Muslim way of defending any idea or action is by showing that it was the practice of the Prophet. So in the Islamic Republic of Iran, from 1989 onwards, articles from time to time appeared in the press, (e.g. Tehran Times, International Weekly, February 23, 1989, p. 12) saying that on this or that occasion, according to reliable biograph­ ical traditions, the Prophet condoned or approved or instigated the murder of one or other of his opponents. A poet, for example, who composed poetry lam­ pooning the Prophet, a singing girl whose offence was singing some of these poems, were murdered, according to these traditions, with the approval, or even at the behest, of the Prophet. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 585

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in religious violence and how texts are deployed to justify killing — parallels the sacrificial-kingship material in the ‘On Sacrifice’ article.
• QUESTION: Worth verifying: do the cited biographical traditions (a poet lampooning Muhammad, a singing girl) match the actual hadith accounts, and how do modern Muslim scholars adjudicate this use of precedent?