‘World’s dirtiest man’ dies in Iran at 94… soon after 1st wash in decades
Iranian state media says ‘Amou Haji’ of the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars avoided soap and water for some 60 years
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TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian man dubbed the “dirtiest man in the world” for not taking a shower for decades has died at the age of 94, state media reported on Tuesday.
“Amou Haji,” a nickname for an elderly man in Persian, did not wash with soap and water for more than half a century and remained single after suffering” “emotional setbacks in his youth,” Iranian media reported. He died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars, the IRNA news agency said, months after taking his first wash.
Haji, who has been photographed and filmed covered in soot and dirt, had avoided showering over fears of “getting sick”, the agency quoted a local official as saying. Villagers said he hadn’t been near a shower in some 60 years.
But “for the first time a few months ago, villagers had taken him to a bathroom to wash,” IRNA reported.
The Tehran Times reported in 2014 that Haji ate roadkill, smoked pipes filled with animal excrement, and firmly believed that staying way from washing would keep him healthy, the Guardian reported.
A short documentary film titled “The Strange Life of Amou Haji” was made about his life in 2013, according to Iranian media outlets.
الإعلان عن وفاة الرجل الملقّب بـ(أقذر شخص في العالم) لأنه لم يستحم منذ 50عام.
لم يستحم كل هذه المدة خوفاً من المرض، وهو إيراني أعزب اسمه "عمو حاجي" شره في التدخين، أخذه أهل القرية قبل أشهر ليستحم بالقوة ومات بعدها بعمر 94عام في قرية "دجة" غرب إيران وذلك بحسب وسائل إعلام إيرانية pic.twitter.com/u1itceW9eo— لحظات – MOMENTS (@mennts) October 25, 2022
The previous record for the longest time without washing belonged to an Indian man who had not showered in 35 years, according to The Guardian report.
Kailash Singh ‘Kalau’ stopped showering after reportedly being told he could conceive a son, following the birth of seven daughters, if he stopped washing, according to a 2009 the Hindustan Times report. Singh would take “fire baths” which involved lighting a bonfire, smoking cannabis, and “standing on a leg praying to Lord Shiva,” the report said.
The Times of Israel Community.