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Home > Abdul Alhazred


Abdul Alhazred (sometimes called the "Mad Arab") is a fictional character created by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.

"Abdul Alhazred" is not an Arabic name. The more proper Arabic form might be Abd-el-Hazred, although that's still anomalous, as "Hazred" is not one of the 99 Names of God.

According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon" (written 1927, first published 1938), Alhazred was:

a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia — the Roba el Khaliyeh or "Empty Space" of the ancients — and "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 730Events Emperor Leo III of the Byzantine Empire orders the destruction of all icons. Beginning of the First Iconoclastic Period Births Deaths 730., while still living in Damascus, Alhazred supposedly authored in ArabicArabic is a Semitic language, fairly closely related to, for instance, the Hebrew language and the Aramaic language, spoken throughout the Arab world and widely known outside it. It has been a literary language for over 1500 years, and is the liturgical l a book of ultimate evil, al Azif, which would later become known as the Necronomicon.

Those who have any dealings with the Necronomicon usually come to an unpleasant end, and Alhazred was no exception. Again according to Lovecraft:

Of his final death or disappearance ( 738Events Xukpi suffers a major defeat against Quirigua Saint Boniface visits Rome, and goes on to establish bishopries in Bavaria Births Deaths 738. A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan ( 12th century11th century 12th century 13th century other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. Events Song dynasty loses power over Northern China The Kamakura Shogunate deprives the 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 fabulous Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind. He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown entities whom he called Yog-SothothThis article is about the Cthulhu Mythos deity. Yog-Sothoth is also a French, free-form Jazz band; similar to what one might expect from the character Erich Zann (from the Lovecraft short story The Music of Erich Zann). Yog-Sothoth (nickname: the All-in-O and Cthulhu.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

August Derleth later made alterations to the biography of Alhazared. One change was redating Alhazared's death to 731. Derleth further wrote on the final fate of Alhazred in his story " The Keeper of the Key ", first published in May, 1951. In this story Dr. Laban Shrewsbury (a recurring Derleth character) and his assistant at the time, Naylan Colum , discovered Alhazred's burial site. More specifically they were heading a caravan from Salalah , Oman, and crossed the border into Yemen. There they found the unexplored desert area the Necronomicon names as "Roba el Ehaliyeh" or "Roba el Khaliyeh". At the center of the area they discovered the Nameless City , a domain of Hastur. Shrewsbury, as an old agent of Hastur and devoted enemy of his half-brother Cthulhu, crossed its gates in search of Alhazred's burial site. He indeed found the gate of Alhazred's burial chamber and learned of his fate. Alhazred was kidnapped in Damascus and brought to the Nameless City, where he had earlier studied and learned some of Necronomicon's secrets. As punishment for his betrayal of their secrets, Alhazred was tortured. Then they blinded him and severed his tongue, and finally executed him. The entrance to the chamber warned against disturbing him. But Shrewbury proceeded in entering the chamber and opening the sarcophagus. Though only rugs, bones and dust remained of Alhazred, the sarcophagus also contained an incomplete personal copy of the Necronomicon, written in the Arabic alphabet. Then Shrewsbury used Necromancy to recall Alhazred's spirit and ordered it to draw a map of the world as he knew it. After obtaining the map, which revealed the location of R'lyeh and other secret places, Shrewsbury finally let Alhazred return to his eternal rest.



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