Career
He is buried in Shiraz, Iran. His tomb is a public library today in Shiraz. His full name is Muhammad ibn Khafif ibn Asfakshad, Abu "Abd Allah al-Shirazi al-Dibbi al-Shafi'i al-Sufi.
First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Dhahabi said of him, "He is -- one of the most knowledgeable shaykhs in the external sciences ("ulum al-zahir)." Ibn Taymiyyah names him among the great Sufi representatives of the Sunnah.
Ibn Khafif said, "In my beginnings I would recite in one cycle of prayer al-Ikhlas ten thousand times, or recite the entire Qur'an in one cycle of prayer." First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Sulami said, "Abu "Abd Allah came from a family of princes, but he practiced asceticism (zuhd) to the point that he said, "I would collect rags from refuse-heaps, wash them, and mend whatever I could use for clothing, and I spent fourteen months breaking my fast at night with a handful of beans.""
Allah guides not wrongdoing folk." (9:24) Foreign punishment is not threatened except due to a categorical obligation. I myself used to hide my inkwell and pen inside my clothes, and go secretly to visit the scholars.
If they had found out, they would have fought me and they would have said: You will not succeed. Later they found themselves needing medical "
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" ten thousand times, or recite the entire Qur"an in one rak'a." "Never in forty years was the Ramadan-end purification tax (zakat al-fitr) incumbent upon medical ".
