Chilla
A forty-day retreat of fasting and prayer in Sufi and Persian tradition, also borrowed by folk magical practice.
Also: chillah, chelleh, forty days, arba'in
Chilla, from the Persian word for forty, is a period of seclusion, devotion and restraint, usually forty days. Sufi orders in Central Asia, Iran and South Asia use it for training a disciple, and shrines in India and Pakistan preserve spots where saints are said to have kept one. The number forty has wider weight: Persians call the longest winter days chelleh, and many Middle Eastern customs mark forty days after a birth or a death. Some folk traditions and booklets describe forty-day disciplines undertaken to gain a spiritual power or to bind a spell. Religious scholars regard those as distinct from the Sufi practice and sometimes forbidden. Seclusion is directed by a teacher and not attempted alone.