Photonovel (Intro of 1st Concept)

The Mad Arab

The Mad Arab is a famous character known in the world created by H. P. Lovecraft. First appeared in his story 'The Nameless City' as an old mad Arab poet.

Later more information were reveal by Lovecraft himself and other writers describing a story of an Arab who didn't conform to the Muslim rules and who got exiled and came across The Nameless City and it's most dreadful secret The Necronomicon, thereby becoming a heretic.

As a Muslim myself I've been curious about other philosophies and cultures and I believe that's how I came to really enjoy this story, even though it lives only through an infamous writer's imagination.

I wanted to take that same story and re-work it into a story that will be workable for me and of course, a story that I can change into a melodrama story. My version would be inspired by other stories such as the writer of the 'Gayat Al Hakim' (Book of the Wise aka. Picatrix) where by the writer is yet again a Muslim but who explores 'the forbidden arts'. His work however does shows a level of wisdom. He clearly mentioned that the aim of this work wasn't to promote evil on the 4th extract.

As you can read from the extract from the Picatrix, the author hasn't given away his faith as a Muslim. He sees it as just knowledge which to me is very fascinating considering how nowadays as Muslim we avoid such subjects and labelled it as evil. The work does contain information on how to use the book for evil tho as you may read in this extract.

Another similar story will be from King Solomon, who was known to be a good ruler in the Abrahamic story, always being guided by God. However, he still wrote a few books such as the 'Ars Goetia' or 'The Lesser Key of Solomon' just to name a few, whereby he explains on how to summon demons.

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In my version of The Mad Arab story I want my character to have these believes without being a true heretic, because it's what I believe in. I might however include the Necronomicon, and other piece from H. P. Lovecraft's original story as a Tribute to his works.

I also thought of a story similar to Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth's story from their concept album 'Still Life'. It talks of a story of a Christian man who didn't conform to the Christian laws and lost his lover after a night of fornication which the Christians found out and executed her. From this part of the story he rebels against the Christian's authority and got himself killed at the end of the story.

I haven't formed the beginning of the story yet, but it will be something as follows:

It might either be an arrest by the Islamic authorities or just him being discovered by a Muslim Soldier and the discussion follows.

As for the tone of voice, since it's a quite deep story I wanted to use either Modern English (Shakepearian English) or a combination of the above and Simplified English (Actual English) like in the Bible.

Here's an example of how the sentence will be depending on which direction I chose:

Shakespearian English:

Upon the heresy thou begat, In the name of our Lord, Death shall be thy sentence

Actual English:

For the crime you committed, You shall be condemned to die