Abulurd Harkonnen

Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen was a decorated commander of the Butlerian Jihad and the grandson of Xavier Harkonnen. Born Abulurd Butler, he became a close friend of his mentor Vorian Atreides and rose through the ranks of the Army of the Jihad and the Army of Humanity. His refusal to cross the Bridge of Hrethgir at the Battle of Corrin saw him branded a coward and exiled to the world of Lankiveil, where his descendants built House Harkonnen and carried on the bitter feud with House Atreides for ten millennia. Frank Herbert's Dune gives only the bare fact that the Harkonnen line descends from a Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen banished for cowardice after Corrin; everything else here comes from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's expanded-universe novel. (Dune (appendix); Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

Early life and the name Harkonnen#

Abulurd was the youngest son of Quentin Butler and Wandra Butler, and the grandson of the Jihad commander Xavier Harkonnen. His mother suffered a severe stroke giving birth to him, leaving her catatonic, and Abulurd never knew her, which led his father to love him less and to blame him for her condition. While his father and brothers earned prestige and decorations, Abulurd dedicated himself to the Jihad with the help of Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides, the old friend and colleague of his grandfather. At eighteen he met Vorian on Caladan, who told him the truth that his grandfather had died a hero rather than a traitor. (Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

Service in the Jihad#

During the Omnius Scourge crisis, Abulurd led an expedition to Ix to rescue some of the populace and supply them with the melange now found to help against the virus, clashing with the Supreme Sorceress Ticia Cenva over her preference for saving bloodlines rather than people. In that argument he defiantly demanded to be addressed as Harkonnen. Sent to Parmentier to find out whether the plague had run its course, he was given a field promotion to Tercero by Vorian, buried his dead brother and sister-in-law, and brought his niece Rayna, founder of the Cult of Serena, to Salusa Secundus. During the Great Purge he and his brother Faykan Butler administered the evacuation of the planet. (Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

After the Jihad, Abulurd was decorated and served on many worlds doing reconstruction and security work, sheltered from the major battles by Vorian. When the piranha mites struck Salusa Secundus, Abulurd was the first to recognise that the machines relied on optical targeting and consumed only metals, and he and Vorian devised a plan to approach the mite factories disguised as organic lumps and destroy them with caustic chemicals. Vorian promoted him to the full rank of Bashar and left him the evidence needed to clear his grandfather's name. Abulurd also recognised the returned Jipol leader Yorek Thurr from that same evidence, and later used a field distorter to turn the piranha mites against Thurr. (Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

The Battle of Corrin#

At the Battle of Corrin, which Frank Herbert's glossary dates to 88 BG, Abulurd disagreed with Vorian and refused to advance through the Bridge of Hrethgir, the orbital barrier of two million human slaves that the robot Erasmus threatened to kill. Relieved of his duties and confined, Abulurd broke his confinement and disabled the weapons of the entire League fleet rather than be party to the slaves' deaths. The sabotage didn't stop the League winning; it only made the battle bloodier. (Dune (appendix); Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

Exile and the feud#

For his act, Abulurd was about to be sentenced to death when Vorian proposed instead that he be named a coward and banished, and Faykan Butler agreed. Vorian turned his back on him and swore that all who bore the name Atreides would spit on the name of Harkonnen, and Faykan later decreed that Abulurd's line would keep that disgraced name. Abulurd was exiled to the backwater world of Lankiveil, where he raised a family, among them a child named Dirdos, before he and his wife died of fever some twenty years later. His children grew up on tales of the Jihad and came to hate the name of Atreides, and so his downfall began the feud between House Harkonnen and House Atreides that would last for ten thousand years. (Dune: The Battle of Corrin)