Abū al-Ḥasan Bakrī is the purported author of several Islamic works in Arabic, most notably a biography of Muḥammad entitled Kitāb al-anwār ('Book of Lights'). There is no consensus regarding his historicity (whether he lived) or his floruit (when he lived). Life Franz Rosenthal, Boaz Shoshan and Frederick Colby all accept that Bakrī existed, at least as a working hypothesis. The question of his existence is unresolved because many of the works attributed to him remain unpublished and unanalyzed. The main competing eras for Bakrī's life are the ninth and thirteenth centuries AD. The earliest Islamic biographical dictionary to have an entry on Bakrī is that of al-Dhahabī, who died in 1348. The Anwār cites authors who wrote in the second half of the 13th century, and there is a dated manuscript of the work from 1295. Accepting that Bakrī was the final compiler or rāwī (transmitter) of the Anwār, Rosenthal argued that he wrote in the late thirteenth century. On the other hand, there is a citation to a certain Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAbd Allāh al-Bakrī in the Kitāb badʿ al-khalq wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of , who died in 902. This passage appears to be drawn from the Anwār. Boaz Shoshan argues that the historical Bakrī lived in the ninth century and wrote the Anwār, which was later expanded by others. Other later works are misattributed to him. Shoshan rejects the view that Bakrī is a mere "literary invention" of the later Middle Ages. Little is known of Bakrī, which may explain his absence from early dictionaries. He may have been from or active in Baṣra, since he is sometimes called the "Baṣran preacher". Ibn Taymiyya calls him an Ashʿarī. Writings List of works Six works are attributed to Bakrī by al-Dhahabī: Ḍiyāʾ al-anwār, called al-Dharwa fīʾ l-sīra al-nabawiyya by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, the biography of Muḥammad Raʾs al-ghūl, also called Futūḥ al-Yaman al-maʿrūf bi-raʾs al-ghūl Sharr al-dahr Kitāb Kalandaja Ḥiṣn al-dawlab Kitāb al-ḥuṣūn al-sabʿa wa-ṣāḥibihā Haḍḍām ibn alHajjaf wa-ḥurūb al-imām ʿAlī maʿahu, probably the same as the work known as Qiṣṣat sayr al-imām ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib wa-muḥārabatihi al-malik al-Haḍḍām ibn al-Hajjaf wa-qatlihi al-ḥuṣūn al-sabʿa At least thirty more are known from various archives. These are mostly fictional novelesque treatments of the early Muslim conquests, that is, maghāzī, although a mawlid (poem in praise of Muḥammad) is also attributed to him. Not all of these attributions to him are genuine.