An Iranian man nicknamed the “dirtiest man in the world" for not taking a shower for decades has died at the age of 94 in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars, state media reported on Tuesday.

Haji had avoided showering for decades over fears of "getting sick," but "for the first time a few months ago, villagers had taken him to a bathroom to wash," IRNA reported.

Other reports said that the local villagers believed that the hermit had undergone “emotional setbacks in his youth” that could have resulted in some sort of a trauma that led him to refuse to wash.

A short documentary film titled "The Strange Life of Amou Haji" was made about his life in 2013, the reports also noted.

Amou Haji could often be found roaming around the streets covered in soot and he lived in a shack which was built by local villagers. The hermit also believed that fresh food could make him sick and he would smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, the Tehran Times reported.

For most of his life, Haji lived in isolation in an open brick hut that the villagers constructed when they found him sleeping in a hole in the ground, the New York reported.

The Guardian speculated Kailash “Kalau” Singh, an Indian who had not showered for more than 30 years as of 2009, might be a frontrunner for the bizarre honor.

Speaking to the Hindustan Times several years ago, Singh said his lack of hygiene was an attempt to help “all the problems confronting the nation.” Neighbors argued the then-63-year-old man, the father of 7 daughters, was actually abstaining from cleanliness in the hopes of having a son.