Abdul Alhazred was a poet and sorcerer from Yemen said to have explored the forbidden wastes and the nameless city of Arabia. Active around 700 A.D., he was reputed to worship the Great Old Ones, including Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth.
His life's work, the Al Azif, was later translated as the Necronomicon. His end was as terrible as his studies: witnesses claimed he was seized and devoured by an invisible monster in broad daylight in a Cairo marketplace.