Abdul Alhazred

Abdul Alhazred is a 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.

Name

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.^[1]

Abdul (Abd al) is a common Arabic name component (meaning "servant of the") 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.^[2][3] It might also have been a play on "all-has-read", since Lovecraft was an avid reader in youth.^[4]

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; and 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.^[5]

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 translations, his name has appeared as Abdullah Alḥa ẓred (عبدالله الحظرد): Arabic ḥaẓaraحظر = "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 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^[6].

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 parody tract "Who will be Eaten First?" by Howard Hallis) or "scholar".

Biography

H. P. Lovecraft

Wikisource has original text related to this article: History of the Necronomicon

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 secret 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 730, while still living in Damascus, Alhazred supposedly wrote a book of ultimate evil in 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 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 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-Sothoth and Cthulhu.

See also

• Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam
• Astrology in medieval Islam
• Abdul Alhazred (comics)
• Alhazred (novel)
• Sana'a manuscript

Notes

References

• August Derleth (2000) [1951]. "The Keeper of the Key". Quest for Cthulhu. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-0752-6.
• Harms, Daniel (1998). The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.
• Lovecraft, Howard P. History of The Necronomicon. West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press. ISBN 0-318-04715-2.
• Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon (1st ed.). Tempe, AZ: New Falcon. ISBN 1-56184-129-3.
• Knaut, Andrew (June 2013). Ruby Alsharaf, ed. Metrom. Blogger. Archived from the original on 2013-07-24.