Talk:Abdul Alhazred

John dee

as apposed to bickering rhetoric like wee kids here

http://elearning.zaou.ac.zm:8060/Beliefs/Magick%20&%20Witchcraft,%20Etc/Dee,%20John%201527-1608/

a fair collection of "Dee's" works sort the chaff, harvest the wheat, post the truth or go fix the page for Peer review one is wrong

~~sovos~~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.247.182.50 (talk) 16:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Trolls

Someone redirected the link meant to give information on Lovecraft's ancestry to a NYTimes article on trolls. I'm too lazy to find the original link, so could someone else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.214.138.218 (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Mad Arab

In Lovecraft's tales the usage of "Mad Arab" is almost always capitalised as a proper noun and quotes should reflect this. The only exception to this is The Nameless City and this is when the idea of the Necronomicon and that which was to become the Cthulhu Mythos was still in the earliest stages of development. Hence The "M" should always be capitalised as Lovecraft's work uses the word not as insult or description but as a title and "Mad Arab" can be used as a synonym for Abdul Alhazred.

Actually, in the corrected Arkham House editions of Lovecraft's works (based on original manuscripts and early publications), the "m" is not capitalised even once. Thus, the form "Mad Arab" does not ccur at all in Lovecraft, whereas "mad Arab" does. The article should be changed accordingly.83.254.52.177 (talk) 00:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

--- All of this info about Abdul Alhazred sounds like it was created by an advertising agency to create buzz for a movie that premiered a trailer at the Transformers movie. Good job!

72.219.134.156 22:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Er.. you have it backwards. Alhazred was created at least 70 years ago, if not longer in Lovecraft's head.

Invisible Creature

What was the invisible creature supposed to be? A shoggoth? One of those half-children of Yog-Sothoth? I never figured that out. 71.195.86.253 (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Who is Abdul Alhazred

Who is purported to be the author of the book mentioned, H. P. Lovecraft or Alhazred? Also, why should we care at all about Abdul Alhazred?

Because a lot of people think he may have existed, and probably for the same sorts of reasons some other misguided folk might be interested in the improbable activities of the likes of J Christ esq.... Because they are incapable of discerning the difference between fact and fantasy.

I think we should care because sjc does and because people care to read it, but please do tell us more about this fascinating Abdul Alhazred-character (seems like some archetype pre-renaissance arab scientist) Sjc (talk) 20:49, 11 July 2001

The reason why he should be called Abdul Hazred should be explained. Lovecraft didn't know enough about Arabic names to know that abdul is really abd-al = "servant of the" so abd-al-hazred would be "Servant of hazred" hazred="that which is coming" I think. I'm not near my dictionary. But "Abdul Alhazred" means "Servant of the the thing which is to come" I won't edit it myself because it'd be better for a native speaker to explain.

Also, is an encyclopedia really the place for criticizing Christianity? I thought it's supposed to pretend to be objective. 128.220.29.161 (talk) 20:30, 23 August 2004

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Abdul Alhazred

Note on Abdul Alhazred: though such a form of the name would not be found in the original Arabic, in later medieval translations of the text (into Latin, etc.) you would expect the proper form of the name to be corrupted, as they pretty much invariably were corrupted in other Arab name cases. You can look upon Lovecraft's 'Abdul Alhazred' as the later medieval form of the name. It's probably not simply a case of Lovecraft mixing up his Arabic. Alexander 007 08:59, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

You mean like Alhazen or Alfarabius. That is what TV Tropes would call Fridge Brilliance. Of course that website did not exist when you made that comment, over a decade ago. Maybe someone will add to this "conversation" in 2025.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 04:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Al Hazred's true name

I'm arab. The name "Abdul AlHazred" could not exist because of two reasons:

1) The grammatic nature of the name is incorrect. The word "Abdul" consists of "Abd" + "Al". In Arabic, they're mixed to form the word "Abdul". So if we wrote the name in the original grammatic form, it would be "Abd Al Al Hazred". And this is totally wrong. (by the way, "Abd" means "Slave" while "Al" means "The" - in English)

2) Al Hazred was known to have lived in the "Ammawi" era, i.e. During Islam. Thus, he could never be named "Abd Al Hazred" as this would be a clear denial of his belief in Allah, the name of God in Islam.

The most suggested name is: Abdullah Al Hazred.

[Abdullah = Abd + Allah] = The slave of God [Al Hazred] is just another surname.

The other curtain thing is that Al Hazrad is the real author of "The Necronomicon", and not Lovecraft or any other person Haisook (talk) 20:47, 21 August 2005

Curtain? Oh certain cer-tain. Look thanks for the language lesson but you seemed to have missed the memo. THERE IS NO "REAL" NECRONOMICON! 128.206.104.82 (talk) 18:36, 22 February 2006

Ok First, Whoever is the genius who thinks there is no Necronomicon, you need to do more research. ::Second, Abdul Alhazred could be his real name, seeing as how he did not share the belief in Allah as one would have you imagine. For those of you who need to brush up on your research, I suggest:

1.) Donald Tyson's " Necronomicon, The Wanderings of Alhazred"

2.) Simon's "Dead Names: Dark History of the Necronomicon"

3.) Simon's "The Gates of the Necronomicon"

and before you jump to conclusions, why dont you read the book for yourself?! 4.68.249.1 (talk) 12:24, 19 February 2007

Because 10 minutes of research reveals that Lovecraft was the first person to mention the Necronomicon. There are no earlier references, and Lovecraft said many times that it is a book of his own invention. 216.26.131.217 (talk) 05:46, 21 April 2007

While you're translating the name, what about "Hazred"? Does that have any meaning in Arabic? It quite possibly might not (since by Lovecraft's own admission it was a name he used for himself as a child) but if it did, that would probably be good information to add to the article. 140.198.155.85 (talk) 09:37, 22 March 2007

I have read an article on the subject of Abdul Alhazreds name (and names in Lovecraftian Mythos in general) from the 4th edition of the rulebook for Call of Cthulhu. While I know this may not be a valid source, the (ficitional) writer of the document claimed that the name of "Abdul Alhazred" doesn't make sense and the real name was "Abd Al-Azred", meaning "Worshipper of the Devourer"´, and that the name has then changed over time by mistakes done by the various "translators". While none in Arabia in that time would name anyone "Worshipper of the devourer" it can be believed that abd(ul) changed his name later on when he 'realized the truth' about the universe. Again, I point out that this is a belief issued by the author of CoC and thus may not be a valid source, more a theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.32.37.3 (talk) 10:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Neither. It's a game. It's fiction, based on fiction. It's not a reliable source for research. Do you consult the rules for Candy Land while writing an encyclopedia article on chocolate manufacturing? It makes for a better gaming atmosphere to say that the name means "Worshipper of the Devourer", but it has even less basis in fact than the character himself. I'd like to point out that the morphemes azrad and hazred/hazrad are the same and have the same meaning. To jump from "Servant of the Great Lord" (and "the Prohibited" is a bit of a stretch; the sense of hazrat is of exerting control, over an area or a set of objects, thus it can mean a warlord or the area acquired/controlled by him, it has nothing to do with "forbidden knowledge" as the editor was implying) to "Worshipper of the Devourer" takes a deliberate effort to spin the meaning. The authors of CoC were deliberately equating "great lord" with "Great Old One" or something similar, whereas no such interpretation is linguistically valid. 71.200.138.188 (talk) 00:30, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What if it's suggested to be a linguistic corruption of "Abdul Al Majnun Haju Min Zarid" ("The Mad Pilgrim From Zard")?69.115.92.234 (talk) 03:23, 5 December 2022 (UTC)User Cary

WRONG!!!!

Those aren't REAL NECRONOMICONS ya douche. Those are just objects of "white collar writers" capitalizing on the infamy of the actual (yet FICTIONAL!!!) tome. And if any of you backwards retards, who keep on insisting that there is a real necronomicon, want to challenge me then I suggest you check this link out, link title (UTC) Anonymous 00:01, MAR., 19, 07

SUre there was, just like jedi's are real ;) Sneaking Viper (talk) 20:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

If you google "Necronomicon" there are various people who in all seriousness believe it to be true and tell you that it was written by Abdul Alhazred in the 8th century and even some dipstick that will cast spells from it. --Streona (talk) 10:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

With Strange aeons even death may die... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.233.95 (talk) 22:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Removed from article

I can find no reliable source to substantiate the following:

The term "Mad Arab" in reference to Alhazred is always capitalised and used in the manner of an official title such as another person would be called "Prince" or "Sir" and the term can actually be used in lieu of Alhazred's name as a synonym.

The references I've seen (such as Daniel Harms' The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana and Anthony Pearsall's The Lovecraft Lexicon) mention the "mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred (note that "mad" is lowercase), but say nothing about this moniker being an "official title". In fact, the story that introduces Abdul, "The Nameless City", also uses the lowercase form: "mad Arab". Abdul is also variously referred to as the "mad poet". I suspect that whoever added this piece of information simply made the assumption that "Mad Arab" was some sort of official designation. However, since no sources are cited, it reads like original research.
-,-~^R'lyehRising~-,- 22:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The best source for capitalization/non-capitalization would be Lovecraft's mss., both the fiction and the many, many volumes of letters collected in the five Arkham House volumes, two Night Shade volumes, one volume of HPL's letters to Robert Barlow, slim volumes from Necronomicon Press, and the two (three? more?) volumes from Hippocampus Press. There's a possibility that the Arkham volumes do not always preserve HPL's original capitalization choices, as Derleth has edited them a bit, and any volumes connected with S.T. Joshi may also need checking against the originals, as Joshi, in the Hippocampus Press version of "The Shadow Out of Time," often changes HPL's ms. (as preserved by Barlow) because he thinks HPL would have chosen to employ various archaisms that he had stopped using by that time, late in his career. That said, Joshi is obviously not the most faithful of HPL's editors, as he ignores the variants in HPL's texts for a uniformity that does not exist. Whether other writers changed things or not, or added dimensions to the fictional oeuvre of tomes, does not really matter; HPL was happy to incorporate the writings & developments of his friends/protégés into his Mythos, as he in many places in the letters implies that it is an intertextual, multi-author project. As for "Cthulhu Mythos" being an authorial dictum, if this is true it only became so much later, as HPL refers to the various stories within it as "Yog-Sothothery" in most of his earlier letters. To complicate this even further, the connections between stories are such that very few of HPL's tales exist outside the HPL universe of discourse, and the ones that do are either very short, or very self-enclosed ("The Music of Erich Zann" the most notable stand-alone piece, if I'm remembering right; I no longer have the chart I once made of the interlinkage between the tales). Rtelkin (talk) 14:57, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Odd Phrase - Shall we remove it?

Under the section, "HP Lovecraft," is the following phrase: "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."

I'm fairly sure Lovecraft never referred to the Necronomicon as "a book of ultimate evil." This should be cited or removed. 0x539 (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

NOT a fictional character!

John Dee translated Necronomicon into English in 1571... and he says "it was written by Alhazred". Böri (talk) 16:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Unlikely, as the Necronomicon is a fictional book first mentioned in the works of H.P. Lovecraft in the 1920s. --McGeddon (talk) 13:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

NOT a fictional book! http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JKQUd-lTVkg/TA6dj4VgwPI/AAAAAAAACNI/5i7yAUHZabA/s1600/necronomicon02.jpg Böri (talk) 07:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's the frontispiece to the 1978 George Hay hoax edition (described here). --McGeddon (talk) 11:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)