They are the followers of Abu Abdullah Muhammad b. Khafif of Shiraz, an eminent mystic of his time and the author of celebrated treatises on various branches of Sufism. His virtues and literary attainments are unaccountable. He was a man of great spiritual influence, and had totally renounced the lusts of the nafs (lower soul). I have heard that he had four hundred marriages. This was due to the fact that he was of royal descent, and after his conversion the people of Shiraz paid great court to him, and the daughters of royal families and nobles desired to marry him for the sake of the blessing which would occur to them. He used to comply with their wishes, and then divorce them before consummation of the marriage. But in the course of his life forty wives, who also remained strangers to him, two or three at a time, used to serve him. One of them the daughter of a vizier lived with him for forty years.

Abu al-Hasan Ali Bakran Shirazi related that one day several women who on different occasions had been his wives gathered together, and each one narrated some story about him. They all agreed that even in privacy none of them had seen the Sheikh possessing any carnal desire. Hitherto each of them had believed that she was peculiarly treated in this respect, and when they learned that the Sheikh’s behavior was the same towards them all, they were astonished and doubted whether such was truly the case. Then they thought that since the daughter of the vizier had long association with the Sheikh and who also loved her the most, might be aware of the secrets of Sheikh’s carnal desires. Accordingly, they sent two amongst them to question the vizier’s daughter. She told them that when Sheikh wedded her and she was informed that he would visit her that night, she prepared a fine repast and adorned herself assiduously. When he came and the food was brought in, he called her to him and looked for a while first at her and then at the food. Then he took her hand and drew it into his sleeve. She saw that from his breast to his navel there were fifteen knots growing out of his belly. He said, “O daughter of vizier! Ask me what these are.” So she asked him and he replied, “These are the knots made by the passions and anguish of my abstinence in renouncing a face like this and food like these.” He said no more, but departed, and that is all her intimacy with him.

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