Ibn Battuta and the Kurdish ascetic

Ibn Battuta, the 14th-century explorer, meets an ascetic in the Kurdish town of Sinjar: 

Thereafter we travelled to the city of Sinjar, which is a large town with an abundance of fruits and trees, and permanent springs and streams, built at the foot of a mountain, and resembling Damascus in the number of its streams and gardens. Its cathedral mosque is a famous place of blessing; it is stated that prayer made in it is answered, and it is encircled and traversed by a running stream. The inhabitants of Sinjar are Kurds, and are brave and generous. One of those whom I met there was a pious shaikh and devotee, the ascetic 'Abdallah al-Kurdi, one of the great shaikhs and endowed with miraculous powers. It is stated of him that he eats only after fasting for forty days, and then breaks his fast only with half a cake of barley bread. I met him in a hermitage on top of the mountain of Sinjar, when he prayed on my behalf and provided me with some silver pieces which I kept in my possession until I was despoiled by the Indian infidels.