Haroun El Poussah is a middle-aged, corpulent man whose main characteristic is his extremely docile nature. He can be seen as the embodiment of a benevolent and benign ruler: he has never been shown to have any conflict with any of his subjects. Because of this, he is extremely popular and loved among his people. Haroun El Poussah's name is a pun on the historical Caliph, Harun al-Rashid. "" is a word of Sanskrit origin derived via Chinese and historically used in French to describe a fat man, in connection with the image ofBudai. His English name of Haroun El Plassid is a pun on his nature. All Haroun El Poussah cares about is eating, sleeping and having lazy fun. He spends most of his time asleep, waking only when it's time to eat, when some servant shows him a fancy western object or when his Grand Vizier Iznogoud appears to invite him to some sort of new activity, which invariably turns out to be a trap of the plot to get rid of him and get Iznogoud elected as the new caliph. The plots never work, and Haroun El Poussah remains completely oblivious of them, confident that Iznogoud loves him and wants only the best for him, often calling him "My good Iznogoud". Haroun El Poussah's caliphate is actually an electoral monarchy, with elections for the new caliph held every ten years. However, because only the current caliph has the right to vote, every election always has the same result. Haroun El Poussah has three brothers: Deuroun El Poussah, Troiroun El Poussah and Quatroun El Poussah, of which Iznogoud confronted in the album"Enfin Calife!".
Publication history
The character first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comics magazineRecord on January 15, 1962. After four years, the strip shifted to Goscinny's Pilotemagazine in 1968. Initially, the Iznogoud series was named Les aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah, but it was eventually decided that Haroun El Poussah was too weak a character to be the focal character of the comic strip. The title was then passed on to Iznogoud, despite that he is the villain.
