Naqalāt al-Anwār (Bearers of the Lights), whose author is commonly known as al-Bikri. Because most of what he relates is found in none of the well-known Muslim books, and because none of the scholars have transmitted it—indeed, the opposite has been conveyed through mass transmission—those versed in the Prophet’s life consider it a manifest lie, even though many ordinary people who are ignorant of the facts may accept it.

Another illustration is the tale some people circulate: that during the campaign of Khaybar ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib set up his hand for the army to pass across it, and that when a mule passed over it he said, “May Allah cut off your progeny,” whereupon the animal’s line was indeed severed. Nothing of this appears in any work authored by specialists in his biography, nor has a single one of them reported it. The only people who pass it on are either notorious liars or uninformed individuals. For that reason Muslim scholars unhesitatingly label it a fabrication, knowing that the contrary is mutawātir: at Khaybar there was not a single mule, and in Madinah or Mecca there existed no mule at all except his own, the one presented to him by al-Muqawqis, the Christian ruler of Egypt and Alexandria—and that gift did not reach him until after the conquest of Khaybar, once the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had written to