Kitāb al-anwār The Arabic Kitāb al-anwār survives in over a dozen manuscript, mostly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The earliest copy was made in Dénia in 1295 and is now shelfmark Borg. ar. 125 in the Vatican Library. Part of the Anwār, or else one of its source texts, was translated into Latin in 1142–1143 by Herman of Carinthia under the title Liber de generatione Mahumet et nutritura eius ('Book of Muḥammad's Genealogy and his Nurturing'), as part of the project now known as the Corpus Islamolatinum sponsored by the Abbey of Cluny. The Latin version survives in at least 23 manuscripts of the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. Hermann worked in the city of León. The Anwār also circulated in Spain in aljamiado form, that is, translated into Andalusi Romance and written in Arabic script, under the title El Libro de las luces. It is known from at least five manuscripts. The Anwār is an account of the genealogy of Muḥammad and of his early life down to the start of his mabʿath (mission). A major element is the nūr Muḥammadī, Muḥammad's special light or essence, which is primordial and transmitted from Adam to him. Although this doctrine was accepted by Sunnīs, it played a much larger role in Shīʿism. The Anwār describes the creation of the light by Gabriel through the mixing of a white substance (qabḍa bayḍāʾ) with dust from the ground where Muḥammad's grave will lie. It was then washed in Tasnīm and the other springs of Paradise before being deposited in Adam. The Anwār was written for a popular audience, includes many myths and legends and diverges in many ways from more traditional accounts. It includes an account of the Ethiopian siege of Mecca. The earliest surviving version (from 1295) ends with Muḥammad entering the service of Khadīja, while the fuller early modern editions end with their marriage. Reception Works attributed to Bakrī were popular, but Islamic scholars had a low opinion of him. According to al-Dhahabī, he was a "liar and swindler" and "inventor of stories", but popular in the bookshops of Damascus. Subsequent scholars are equally scathing in their assessments. Writing a little later in the same century, Ibn Kathīr, compares the Sīrat al-Bakrī (i.e., the Kitāb al-anwār) to the popular romances (sīra shaʿbiyya), such as Sīrat Dhīʾl-himma waʾl-Baṭṭāl, Sīrat ʿAntar and Sīrat al-Danif. He describe's Bakrī's "lies" as "an offence and a