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#Redirect [[Necronomicon#Fictional history]]
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'''Abdul Alhazred''' is a [[Character (arts)|fictional character]] created by American horror writer [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. He is the so-called "Mad [[Arab]]" credited with authoring the fictional book ''Kitab al-Azif'' (the ''[[Necronomicon]]''), and as such is an integral part of [[Cthulhu Mythos]] lore.


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==Name==
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{{original research|section|date=February 2013}}{{weasel|section|date=February 2013}}
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''Abdul Alhazred'' was a pseudonym adopted by Lovecraft after reading ''[[1001 Arabian Nights]]'' in his early childhood. The name may have been invented by Lovecraft himself or the Phillips' family lawyer Albert Baker.<ref>Harms, p. 7, ''The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana''.</ref>
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''[[Abdul]]'' is a common Arabic name component [meaning servant of the powerful] but never a name by itself. ''Alhazred'' may allude to ''Hazard'', a reference to the book's destructive and dangerous nature, or to Lovecraft's ancestors by that name.<ref>L. Sprague de Camp, ''Lovecraft, a Biography''. Ballantine, 1976.</ref><ref>[http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=REG&db=glencoe&id=I6863 Rootsweb page on Lovecraft's family tree, showing his Hazard ancestry.]</ref> It might also have been a play on "all-has-read", since Lovecraft was an avid reader in youth.<ref>Pearsall, "Alhazred, Abdul", ''The Lovecraft Lexicon'', p. 55.</ref>

Another possibility, raised in an essay by the Swedish fantasy writer and editor Rickard Berghorn, is that the name ''Alhazred'' was influenced by references to two historical authors whose names were Latinized as ''Alhazen'': [[Alhazen ben Josef]], who translated [[Ptolemy]] into [[Arabic language|Arabic]]; and [[Alhazen|Abu 'Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham]], who wrote about optics, mathematics and physics. Ibn al-Haytham is said to have pretended to be mad to escape the wrath of a ruler.<ref>[http://www.alephbok.se/alhazen_alhazred.html Rickard Berghorn "Alhazen och Alhazred"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100812053244/http://www.alephbok.se/alhazen_alhazred.html |date=August 12, 2010 }} {{sv icon}}</ref>

''Abdul Alhazred'' is not a real [[Arabic name]], and seems to contain the Arabic definite article morpheme ''al-'' twice in a row (anomalous in terms of [[Arabic grammar]]). The more proper Arabic form might be ''Abd-al-Hazred'' or ''Abdul Hazred''. In [[Arabic language|Arabic]] translations, his name has appeared as ''Abdullah Al[[Heth|ḥ]]a [[Ẓāʼ|ẓ]]red'' (عبدالله الحظرد): Arabic ''{{transl|ar|ḥaẓara}}''حظر = "he fenced in", "he prohibited". Hazred could come from the Arabic word "Hazrat" meaning Great Lord with a twist that makes it sound like "red" and "hazard" both indicative of danger. It is also thought by some to be a corruption of sorts on the phrase "All has read," to imply he has read much, and has immense amounts of knowledge. However Abdul is a common Arabic prefix meaning "Servant" and "Al" is Arabic for "the", and if "hazra" means "he prohibited", "he fenced in" or "Great Lord", then the name would mean "Servant of the Prohibited", "Servant of the Fenced in", or "Servant of the Great Lord" which would make sense considering his role, even if it is not a proper Arabic name.

An explanation that is more in sync with Arabic usage and existing Sufi tradition is that it is a corruption of "Abd-al-Hazra[h]" عبدالحضرة, where "haẓrat" is the Persian and Ottoman Turkish form of the Arabic word "Haḍra[t]" | [[Hadrat]] حضرة meaning "presence" used by some speakers as an honorific title before the names of prophets, saints, and also as a mnemonic for the name of Allah, as well as a common honorific title for ordinary people. The final [[:wikt:ة|taa marbuta]] is customarily variably turned into "t" or omitted in spoken Arabic in various varieties. "Haḍra" is also the name of the Sufi [[Dhikr#Sufi view|Dhikr]]<ref>[[Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi]], the Alexandrian Andalusian Sufi from the 13th century CE, is [https://books.google.com.eg/books?id=I85EDAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT106&ots=Jr8dv2DS4p&dq=%22%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B6%D8%B1%D8%A9%22&pg=PT106#v=onepage&q=%22%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B6%D8%B1%D8%A9%22&f=false quoted to have said] "All universes are slaves subdued for you, and you are the '''slave of the presence''' (lit. Abd alHadra)" in Arabic "الأكوان كلها عبيد مسخرة لك، وأنت '''عبد الحضرة'''".</ref>{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}.

Similarly, an article{{citation needed|date=April 2013}} (written from an in-universe perspective) in the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)|Call of Cthulhu]]'' [[tabletop role-playing game]] speculates that it may be a corruption of ''Abd Al-Azrad'', which it claims translates to ''The Worshipper of the Great Devourer''{{citation needed|date=August 2016}}.

The phrase "mad Arab", sometimes with both words capitalized in Lovecraft's stories, is used so commonly before Alhazred's name that it almost constitutes a title. A reference to the "Mad Arab" in [[Cthulhu Mythos]] fiction is invariably a synonym for Abdul Alhazred. Later writers sometimes preface Alhazred with words such as "monk" (such as in the [[Chick Publications|Chick]] parody tract [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=135 "Who will be Eaten First?"] by [[Howard Hallis]]) or "scholar."

==Biography==
{{unreferenced section|date=August 2016}}

===H. P. Lovecraft===
{{wikisource|History of the Necronomicon}}
According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon" (written 1927, first published [[1938 in literature|1938]]), Alhazred was:

:a mad poet of [[Sanaá]], in [[Yemen]], who is said to have flourished during the period of the [[Umayyad Caliphate|Ommiade]] [[Caliphate|caliphs]], circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of [[Babylon]] and the subterranean secret of [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]] and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of [[Arabia]]&mdash;the [[Rub' al Khali|Roba El Khaliyeh]] or "Empty Space" of the ancients&mdash;and "[[ad-Dahna Desert|Dahna]]" or "Crimson" desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in [[Damascus]].

In 730, while still living in Damascus, Alhazred supposedly wrote a book of ultimate evil in [[Arabic language|Arabic]], ''al-Azif'', which would later become known as the ''Necronomicon''. Those who have dealings with this book usually come to an unpleasant end, and Alhazred was no exception. Again according to Lovecraft's "History":

:Of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by [[Ibn Khallikan|Ebn Khallikan]] (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen the fabulous [[Iram of the Pillars|Irem]], or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of [[The Nameless City|a certain nameless desert town]] the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind. He was only an indifferent [[Muslim|Moslem]], worshipping unknown entities whom he called [[Yog-Sothoth]] and [[Cthulhu]].

===August Derleth===

[[August Derleth]] later made alterations to the biography of Alhazred, such as redating his death to 731. Derleth also changed Alhazred's final fate, as described in his [[short story]] "[[The Trail of Cthulhu|The Keeper of the Key]]", first published in May [[1951 in literature|1951]]. In the story, [[The Trail of Cthulhu#Laban Shrewsbury|Professor Laban Shrewsbury]] (a recurring Derleth character) and his assistant at the time, [[The Trail of Cthulhu#Nayland Colum|Nayland Colum]], discover Alhazred's burial site.

While the two are heading a caravan from [[Salalah]], [[Oman]], they cross the border into [[Yemen]] and find the unexplored desert area that the ''Necronomicon'' calls "Roba el Ehaliyeh" or "Roba el Khaliyeh" — presumably a reference to the [[Empty Quarter]] or "Rub al Khali".

At the center of the area they discover the Nameless City (the setting of [[The Nameless City|the Lovecraft story of the same name]]) and in Derleth's text the domain of the [[Great Old One]] [[Hastur]]. Shrewsbury, an old agent of Hastur and the devoted enemy of Hastur's half-brother, Cthulhu, crosses its gates in search of Alhazred's burial site.

He indeed finds Alhazred's [[burial chamber]] and learns of his fate. Alhazred had been kidnapped in [[Damascus]] and brought to the Nameless City, where he had earlier studied and learned some of the ''Necronomicon''{{'}}s lore. As punishment for betraying their secrets, Alhazred was tortured. Then they blinded him, severed his tongue and executed him.

Although the entrance to the chamber warns against disturbing him, Shrewsbury opens Alhazred's [[sarcophagus]] anyway, finding that only rags, bones, and dust remain of Alhazred. However, the sarcophagus also contains Alhazred's personal, incomplete copy of the ''Necronomicon'', written in the [[Arabic alphabet]]. Shrewsbury then uses [[necromancy]] to recall Alhazred's spirit and orders it to draw a map of the world as he knew it. After obtaining the map, which reveals the location of [[R'lyeh]] and other secret places, Shrewsbury finally lets Alhazred return to his eternal rest.

==See also==
*[[Alchemy and chemistry in Islam]]
*[[Islamic astrology]]
*[[Abdul Alhazred (comics)]]
*[[Alhazred (novel)]]
*[[Sana'a manuscripts]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*{{cite book|author=August Derleth|chapter=The Keeper of the Key|origyear=1951|title=Quest for Cthulhu|year=2000|location=New York, NY|publisher=Carroll & Graf|isbn=0-7867-0752-6}}
*{{cite book|last=Harms|first=Daniel|title=The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana|edition=2nd|year=1998|location=Oakland, CA|publisher=Chaosium|isbn=1-56882-119-0}}
*{{cite book|first=Howard P|last=Lovecraft|title=History of The Necronomicon|publisher=Necronomicon Press|location=West Warwick, RI|isbn=0-318-04715-2|url=http://www.mythostomes.com/content/view/12/72/}}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
*{{cite book|last=Pearsall|first=Anthony B.|title=The Lovecraft Lexicon|edition=1st|year=2005|location=Tempe, AZ|publisher=New Falcon|isbn=1-56184-129-3}}
*{{cite book|last=Knaut|first=Andrew|title=Metrom|date=June 2013|publisher=Blogger|url=http://metrom.blogspot.ca/2013/06/chapter-2.html|archive-url=https://archive.is/20130724144720/http://metrom.blogspot.ca/2013/06/chapter-2.html|dead-url=yes|archive-date=2013-07-24|editor=Ruby Alsharaf}}

{{H. P. Lovecraft}}


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Latest revision as of 22:25, 16 October 2024

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