An
Arabic poet and
mystic. More properly, his
name was
Abd al-Azrad. It is said that, as a
young man, he spent ten years
alone in the
desert, studied under
wizards, and visited
Irem,
the Nameless City, and a
dangerous-sounding
shrine called
the Black Mosque.
He traveled throughout much of the
Middle East, sometimes following
masters both human and otherwise, and sometimes leading
followers of his own. He isn't known to have ever taken a wife and is said to have lived as a holy man, though he didn't live a particularly
holy life. In fact, it was said that he was responsible for the
deaths of at least a hundred people who he sacrificed to various
evil gods, and it was said that he raised so many
demons and consorted with so many
horrors that even the most powerful of the
djinn feared him.
Later in his life, he wrote a
book on
magic called "
Kitab al-Azif", which was retitled "
Necronomicon" when it was eventually translated into
Greek. It is solely for his work with the Necronomicon that his reputation as the world's greatest
chronicler of the
supernatural -- and as a
madman -- is based.
According to his 12th century
biographer,
Ibn Khallikan, he worshipped
Cthulhu and
Yog-Sothoth and died in
738 AD when he was
mysteriously torn apart in
broad daylight before a
marketplace crowd in
Damascus.
"History of the Necronomicon" by H.P. Lovecraft
"The Nameless City" by Lovecraft
"The Doom of Yakthoob" by Lin Carter
Encyclopedia Cthuliana by Daniel Harms, p. 1