In the 1280s in Castile, Spain, the most influential Kabbalistic text of all was written. This is the Book of Enlightenment, Sefer HaZohar. At first it was circulated among Kabbalists in short fragments, having a great impact but only among a very limited group of mystics. It took about two centuries for it to achieve the status that it eventually attained. The Zohar is the only text besides the Bible and the Talmud ever to be considered a canonical book in the Jewish tradition.