In Farid al-Din Attar's Mosibat Nameh, the tale of the madman at the cemetery who performs the four funeral takbirs (char takbir) over all worldly existence serves as an allegory for complete spiritual renunciation. Overwhelmed by the continuous stream of funerals, the madman concludes that instead of praying over each corpse individually, one must say the four takbirs over the entire material world. Through this narrative, Attar teaches that the material world is dead and that failing to detach from it spiritually degrades the soul, making the seeker 'more dead than the dead.'