December 16, 2022
HOME — Amou Haji (inset) had two places where he lived. Sometimes he stayed in this small building built for him by local residents. But much of the time he lived in a hole in the ground.
An Iranian hermit nick-named the “world’s dirtiest man” for not taking a shower for more than half a century has died at the healthy old age of 94, state media have reported.
The state news agency reported that “Amou Haji,” an endearing nickname for an elderly person, died October 23 in his shack in the village of Dejgah in Fars province.
Haji, covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, was reported by local media not to have bathed with water or soap in more than 60 years. Villagers said he had experienced “emotional setbacks in his youth” that led him to refuse to wash.
But, local media say, Amou Haji finally succumbed to pressure and washed a few months ago.
According to Iran’s state news agency, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), he became ill shortly afterwards and has now died. Now that he has died, some may argue that he had been right to avoid a bath for so long.
In a previous interview, given to the Tehran Times in 2014, he revealed his favorite meal was porcupine, and that he shifted living quarters between a hole in the ground and a brick shack built by concerned neighbors in the village.
He told the outlet at the time his unusual choices were down to “emotional setbacks” when he was younger.
Years of not bathing had left him with skin covered in “soot and pus,” while his diet had consisted of rotten meat and unsanitary water drunk from an old oil can.
The Tehran Times reported that Haji believed that cleanliness would make him ill. Photos showed him smoking multiple cigarettes at once. He never married.
He became an object of curiosity in recent years, with people posting video of his strange behavior, which included smoking dung from a metal plumbing joint.
Pictures showed the ascetic sitting in the dirt, his skin and rags black with filth.
Among the lore surrounding him, it was claimed that he ate roadkill – preferring rotten porcupine meat – and drank five liters of water a day collected from puddles in a rusty pail.
Despite this unorthodox lifestyle, his constitution remained robust until recently, with reports earlier this year that a team of doctors from Tehran had examined him and found him to be in good health.
