said to the followers of Ibn Maktum: "Busy yourself with the acquisition of some knowledge, and do not let the words of the Sufis [to the contrary] fool you. I myself used to hide my inkwell and pen inside my clothes, and go secretly to visit the scholars. If they [the Sufis] had found out, they would have fought me and they would have said: You will not succeed. Later they found themselves needing me." When Ibn Khafif became too weak to stand in his habitual supererogatory prayers, he prayed double their number sitting, in view of the Prophet's report whereby "The prayer of one sitting is half that of one standing." Ibn Bakuyah related from Ibn Khafif that he said: "In my beginnings, I would recite in one rak`a "Qul huwa Allahu ahad" [Sura Ikhlas:112] ten thousand times, or recite the entire Qur'an in one rak`a." "Never in 40 years was the Ramadan-end purification tax (zakat al-fitr) incumbent upon me." He is buried in Shiraz, Iran. His tomb is a public library today. See also List of Sufis List of Ash'aris and Maturidis Persian literature References Other references: Arberry's Shiraz p. 61-85 Shadd al-Izar, p. 38-46 Shiraznameh, p. 125-130 Asharis Shafi'is Sunni Sufis Iranian Sufis 10th-century Iranian people 10th-century jurists 882 births 982 deaths