Abdul alhazred

Abdul Alhazred is a fictional character from the universe created by writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. According to the accounts of him, continued by other authors, he was an Arab poet and demonologist author of the book Al Azif (called in Greek Necronomicon , & # 39; About the law of the dead & # 39;). He is usually called "El Árabe Loco " (Mad Arab , with capital letters) and sometimes that epithet substitutes his name. The first mention of him dates back to 1921, when the story The Nameless City was published, where he is cited as the author of some verses that he & # 34; dreamed & # 3. 4; at that location. However, Abdul Alhazred was a pseudonym used by Lovecraft from his childhood.

Biography

In 1938 the History of the Necronomicon was published, a text written by Lovecraft in 1927, which summarizes the biography of Abdul Alhazred:

... a mad poet from Sana`a, in Yemen, of whom it is said to flourish during the time of the Omeyas caliphs, circa 700 AD.

Lovecraft, Howard Phillips. "History of the Necronomicon"

The text adds that this poet visited the ruins of Babylon and the secret underground of Memphis, then spent ten years in the Arabian desert of Rub al-Jali, inhabited by specters and monsters. There he probably stumbled upon the lost city of Irem of the Pillars, where he found texts from a vanished race before Humanity.

Alhazred was not a Muslim, he worshiped cosmic gods called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. Around the year 730, in Damascus, he wrote a book in Arabic which he gave the title al-Azif , a name that evokes the nocturnal whispers of the Djinns, which was better known by its Greek translation.: the Necronomicon.

Like all who dealt with this cursed book, Alhazred died mysteriously and cruelly. One of the many versions of it, supposedly recounted by the chronicler Ibn Khallikan (12th century, according to Lovecraft) in the year 738, in Damascus, Alhazred was carried off by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured in front of numerous stunned witnesses..

August Derleth, Lovecraft's friend and literary executor, recounts the end of Alhazred's life in his short story "The Keeper of the Key" published in 1951. In the story, Professor Laban Shrewsbury, follower of Hastur and enemy of Cthulhu, travels with his assistant Nayland Colum from Oman and they arrive at the Rub al Jali desert, where they find "The Nameless City" and the tomb of Abdul Alhazred. There they discover that the "mad Arab" was kidnapped in Damascus in the year 73, Derleth changes the date given by Lovecraft, and taken to "The Nameless City", where he once knew the ancient knowledge that he later revealed in the Necronomicon; in punishment, he was tortured, blinded, had his tongue cut out, and finally executed. Shrewesbury opens Alhazred's sarcophagus, finding in it a few remains of the sage and an incomplete copy of Al Azif or Necronomicon written in Arabic. Using necromancy, the protagonist summons the spirit of Alhazred, who reveals the location of R'lyeh.

In 2004, occult writer Donald Tyson published a supposed translation of the Necronomicon, with the subtitle: The Wanderings of Alhazred (The Wanderings of Alhazred). This work, which the author described as fictional, was followed in 2006 by the novel Alhazred: Author of the Necronomicon.

Tyson recounts the sage's origins autobiographically. Abdul was a poor young man and skilled at poetry. Protected by the king of Yemen, he is taken to the palace where he lives in luxury and learns magic. In love with the monarch's daughter, he is discovered and arrested. After being tortured and mutilated, he is thrown into the Rub al Khali.

In the desert, Abdul joins a tribe of jinn and enters the service of a powerful and dark being named Nyarlathotep. He decides to escape and it is then that he takes the name of Alhazred. On the run, he begins a quest to heal his body and soul, and find his true love, the king's daughter.

Etymology and origin of the name

The name does not strictly follow the rules of Arabic onomastics, but it is not without meaning. Abdul (Arabic: عبد ال, ʿAbd al-) is an etymon meaning “the servant of”, but requires a complement, which is usually Allah (God) for become name; in this case Abdulah (in Arabic عبد الله, ʿabd allāh) Alhazred is an unusual form, since Arabic grammar does not recommend its doubling article; for this reason it has been retranslated into Arabic as Abd-al-Hazred, Abdul Hazred or, as in Lovecraft's Arabic edition, Abdullah Alḥaẓred (عبدالله الحظرد)

This plugin, Hazred, has been interpreted in various ways. Some authors have related him to ḥaẓara (Arabic: حظر) "he is fenced in", "he has forbidden” for which the name of the character would be “Servant of the forbidden". Others link it to the word of Persian origin ḥadˤrah (حَضْرَة) which is pronounced hazret and means “presence”, used as a title of honor before certain names. And other explanations based on the Arabic language or Islamic history have been proposed.

The Swedish writer Rickard Berghorn, looks for the origin in two Arab authors, namely: Alhazen ben Josef, to whom Lovecraft attributes the translation of Ptolemy into Arabic, and Abu'Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, mathematician and physicist who feigned madness to escape the wrath of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim. Both sages were known in Latin as Alhazen.

The truth is that the name was created by Lovecraft himself, according to his correspondence, after reading The Thousand and One Nights:

...at the age of five. In those days I used to use a turban, paint with horned cork a beard on my face and call me by the synthetic name (Allah only knows where I got it) of Abdul Alhazred, which I later revived, in memory of the old days, to give it to the hypothetical author of the hypothetical Necronomicon!

Lovecraft, Letter to Robert E. Howard of October 4, 1930.

In other texts, he states that the name was actually due to the attorney for his maternal family, the Phillips, Albert Baker. As for his choice, while Abdul resembles an Arabic name, Alhazred may well come from the word chance, Hazard, which was also the last name of one of his ancestors, or else from a play on words, which Lovecraft was fond of, with the phrase all has read (in English, "has read everything") that alludes to his condition as an avid reader.

As for the idea of making an Arab the original author of the book, Lovecraft recounts in a letter:

The name Necronomicon [...] occurred to me in the course of a dream [...] By assigning an Arab author to a book of Greek name, he was capriciously investing the condition by which the monumental astronomical work of the Greek Ptolomeo (Megalê Syntaxis Tês `Astronomy) is commonly known by the Arabic name Almagesto (or more truly, Tabrir al Magesthi), which was developed from the corruption of the original title when the Arabs made their translation...

Lovecraft. Letter to Harry O. Fischer.

In works outside the Cthulhu Mythos

Stephen King

Stephen King mentions it in the novel: "The Eyes of the Dragon"; the wizard Flagg is shown reading an ancient book written on the plain of Leng "by a madman named Alhazred".

Marvel

Abdul Alhazred sometimes also Abd-el-Hazred is a fictional villain from the Marvel Comics comic strips. He is mentioned with the aliases of The crazy Arab, the god of Death or the Master (Mad Arab, Death God and Master)

He first appeared in an adaptation of Tarzan as one of his enemies. Despite being based on the Lovecraftian character, his story is different. Alhazred is the leader of a rebel slave band in the Sahara. Defeated and wounded, he was abandoned by his people in the desert. There he found a magic rock through which he entered another dimension, located in the underground world. Alhazred dies, but his soul survives. He first enters a reptilian and then escapes from there to join a human and again be the leader of a new group of runaway slaves. At this time he finds Tarzan and after several battles, he is reduced to ashes while trying to charge a mystical crystal with energy.

Abdul Alhazred also appears as an enemy of Wolverine, who defeats him but claims to respect his power. In the fight for control of Madripoor, Wolverine causes Alhazred to be sent to the extradimensional world of demons.

Abdul Alhazred, born in the 8th century and author of the Necronomicon, a book inspired by the Darkhold, possesses magical powers: he can transport himself in a cloud of smoke and hypnotize others, he is also almost invulnerable and has the ability to summon to the demons He often uses terror to control his servants.