World’s 'dirtiest man' dies months after his first bath: What you need to know about him

There is a common saying that cleanliness leads to godliness. But in Iran's Dejgah village, for a man named Amou Haji, cleanliness led to sickness. Haji didn't take a bath for the last 67 years because he felt that if he went near water, he would die. And when he finally did, he died few months later.

Amou Haji, also known as world's 'dirtiest' man breathed his last at the age of 94. In 2014, it had come to light that the man didn't take a bath for nearly 60 years. Numerous efforts by people to clean him went in vain. He lived in isolation, cut off from the world, in the holes of a desert. His life shrouded in mystery and his disdain for cleanliness is said to be due to a big setback in his youth. 

Here are 5 things you must know about Amou Haji:

1. Lived in holes: Amou Haji lived in Dejgah village in the southern Iranian province. He divided his time by living in a hole which reminded him of his grave and sometimes in an open brick shack built for him by his neighbours. His isolated lifestyle, is the aftereffect of several emotional setbacks during his youth, reported the Tehran Times.

2. Used to eat rotten meat: Amou didn't have regular meals and instead his favourite meal was rotting animal meat, especially porcupine meat. He never liked home-cooked meals. And to keep himself hydrated, he used to drink 5 litres of water from his large rusty tin can.

3. Smoking animal faeces: Normal cigarettes never fancied him and he preferred to smoke animal faeces out of a rusty pipe. According to him, smoking animal dung gave him more satisfaction. He used to say that one normal cigarette wouldn't be enough for him and he smoked multiple cigarettes at the same time.

4. Trimmed hair occasionally: Amou didn't bath but he kept his hair short and he trimmed them occasionally. He also wore a helmet, not to fend off enemies but to keep himself warm on cold nights in the desert.

5. Bathing made him sad: Years of not bathing made him covered in "soot and pus". Iran's news agency IRNA interviewed him and he had said that washing and bathing made him sad. That's why he never took efforts to clean himself.

Amou didn't wash himself for nearly 67 years. Towards his end days, he was given a bath by few people after a lot of coaxing. And he died months after that.