Abu al-Hasan Bakri

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A 16th-century aljamiado copy of Bakrī's Anwār

Abū al-Ḥasan Bakrī

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 The question of his existence is unresolved because many of the works attributed to him remain unpublished and unanalyzed.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.[1]

The earliest Islamic

Giorgio Levi della Vida.[5] Other later works are misattributed to him. Shoshan rejects the view that Bakrī is a mere "literary invention" of the later Middle Ages.[4]

Little is known of Bakrī, which may explain his absence from early dictionaries.

Ashʿarī.[6]

Writings

List of works

Six works are attributed to Bakrī by al-Dhahabī:

At least thirty more are known from various archives.

maghāzī, although a mawlid (poem in praise of Muḥammad) is also attributed to him. Not all of these attributions to him are genuine.[2]

Kitāb al-anwār

Start of the Latin version of the Anwār from a 12th-century manuscript

The Arabic Kitāb al-anwār survives in over a dozen manuscript, mostly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The earliest copy was made in

city of León.[15] 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.[16]

The Anwār is an account of the

Tasnīm and the other springs of Paradise before being deposited in Adam.[9]

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.[18]

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

fatwā forbidding their reading.[19]

Notes

  1. nasab or patronymic is ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad; and his nisba or tribal name is (al-)Bakrī, indicating the Banū Bakr
    .
  2. ^ A scan of this manuscript is available online: MS Borg. ar. 125.

References

  1. ^ Colby 2008, pp. 273–274.
  2. ^ a b c d Rosenthal 1960.
  3. ^ a b Shoshan 1993, p. 36.
  4. ^ a b c Shoshan 1993, pp. 35–37.
  5. ^ Rosenthal 1968, p. 191n.
  6. ^ Shoshan 1993, p. 97 n10.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Shoshan 1993, p. 97 n12.
  8. ^ Shoshan 1993, pp. 23–24 and 97–99 n13.
  9. ^ a b c Shoshan 1993, p. 24.
  10. ^ Fierro 2016, p. 154.
  11. ^ De la Cruz Palma 2011, p. 11 n17 in the preprint.
  12. ^ Di Cesare 2012, p. 99.
  13. ^ De la Cruz Palma & Ferrero Hernández 2011, pp. 500–501.
  14. ^ De la Cruz Palma & Ferrero Hernández 2011, pp. 502–503.
  15. ^ De la Cruz Palma 2011, p. 19 in the preprint.
  16. ^ Fierro 2011–2013, p. 98.
  17. ^ Fierro 2016, pp. 154, 161.
  18. ^ Shoshan 1993, pp. 24–32.
  19. ^ a b Shoshan 1993, p. 23.
  20. ^ Shoshan 1993, p. 107 n160.

Bibliography

  • Colby, Frederick S. (2008). Narrating Muḥammad's Night Journey: Tracing the Development of the Ibn ʿAbbās Ascension Discourse. State University of New York.
  • De la Cruz Palma, Óscar (2011). "Notas a la lectura del Liber de generatione Mahumet (trad. de Hermán de Carintia, 1142–1143)". In J. Martínez Gázquez; Ó. de la Cruz Palma; C. Ferrero Hernández (eds.). Estudios de latín medieval hispánico. SISMEL. pp. 609–625. Preprint online.
  • De la Cruz Palma, Óscar; Ferrero Hernández, Cándida (2011). "Hermann of Carinthia". In David Thomas; Alex Mallett; Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala; Johannes Pahlitzsch; Mark Swanson; Herman Teule; John Tolan (eds.). Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Vol. 3 (1050–1200). Leiden: Brill. pp. 497–507.
  • Di Cesare, Michelina (2012). The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muhammad in Medieval Latin Literature: A Repertory. De Gruyter.
  • Fierro, Maribel (2011–2013). "El Kitāb al-anwār y la circulación de libros en al-Andalus". Sharq al-Andalus. 20: 97–108.
  • Fierro, Maribel (2016). "How Do We Know about the Circulation of Books in al-Andalus? The Case of al-Bakrī's Kitāb al-Anwār". Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. 4: 152–169.
    hdl:10261/193376
    .
  • Lugo Acevedo, María Luisa (2008). El Libro de las luces: leyenda aljamiada sobre la genealogía de Mahoma. SIAL Ediciones.
  • Lugo Acevedo, María Luisa (2010). "El libro de las luces" (PDF). In Alfredo Mateos Paramio (ed.). Memoria de los Moriscos: Escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural. Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales. pp. 206–208.
  • Norris, Harry T. (1988). "The Rediscovery of the Ancient Sagas of the Banū Hilāl". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 51 (3): 462–481.
  • OCLC 495469456
    .
  • Rosenthal, Franz (1968). A History of Muslim Historiography (2nd ed.). E. J. Brill.
  • Shoshan, Boaz (1993). Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo. Cambridge University Press.
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