In his teens, Sayyidī Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkarī started working in a fish factory to help his family. In addition to this labor, he sold fish and clothes in the marketplace. During this time, he experienced great inequities and went through numerous trials, and his relationship with his stepmother became so complicated that the world seemed too narrow for him, death being preferable to life.

In reference to this trying time, I once heard him say, “Even I, your Shaykh, committed a sin greater than all your sins put together before meeting my Shaykh. In our family, prayer, invocation, and abstinence were common things, praise be to God for all His graces, but there came a time when the world became too narrow for me, and one day I sent my brother Abdullah to buy some juice and about one hundred poisonous pills for me... A single pill of those could kill three dogs."

“I bought one hundred pills that day. My parents had brought us up religiously, and recalling some ḥadīths as I was taking the pills I knew perfectly well that my place would be in Hell. I knew that, as the ḥadīth puts it, I would be condemned to perform my action perpetually in Hell... I knew it. I also recall that when I took the poison the call for the afternoon prayer was announced. I went to the mosque, with poison in my stomach, and prayed the two cycles in reverence for the mosque.

While praying, I swear, I have yet to pray like that day... In every prostration it was as if I would not get up again, and while standing up I would see the Name Allāh in front of me on a decoration. I was waiting for death and the hellfire. I prayed to God to not cut my prayers off with my death, and indeed I was able to complete them. As I was leaving the mosque I fell to the ground.”

Sayyidī Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi spent those three days, from Wednesday to Friday, unconscious and beside himself, between life and death. God sent him a vision in that state, which he related to us as such: “I saw myself in a type of tribunal. There were several men in front of me, who seemed like judges. I saw them discuss my case among themselves until one of them turned towards me holding his hammer, and slamming it forcefully he said, ‘Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkarī is condemned to ten years in prison.’”

He woke up from his coma by the call for Friday prayers, which he attended. There was no trace of poison left in him; it was as though he had never taken the pills. A few days later, aged nineteen, his spiritual state became so intense that he was isolated from his family and friends, and undertook a trip across Morocco. He visited several cities, reached distant places on foot, and walked among mountains and valleys. He said, “My family thought that after my suicide attempt I would start again. For them I was virtually dead.”

Our Shaykh’s brother, Sīdī Abdel-Nasser told us: “I still remember the day. He was with the dervish (faqīr) Ibn al-Siniy. After receiving a telephone call, he left... It was the last time that I saw him for the next ten years.”

The young Mohamed Faouzi then went to Nador accompanied by Sharīf b. al-Siniy, and spent what was left of his money for the ticket to the farthest destination he could afford; the city of Taza, where his boarding school was located. Then he continued his trip to Fes.

I heard him say about this experience: “The first night that we spent outside was on a road leading to the city of Sefrou, and the first city in which we stayed was Fes, close to the gate of Boujloud (bāb bujlūd), a few meters from the taxi station... We did not know anyone, but after some time I recognized the different quarters of Fes, Mont-Fleuri, Zouagha... I remember a mosque where we spent many nights. After Fes, we travelled on foot all the way to Oujda where we stayed for three months. Then we went to Nador for three days, and finally to al-Hoceima where we spent a week. After al-Hoceima we walked all the way to Oued Laou. We would sleep under trees, and whenever hunger seized us, we ate leaves. Following Oued Laou, we continued our trip towards Tétouan, then Tanger, and we returned to Fes again. From Fes we headed for Marrakech where we only spent two days, and we continued our trip towards Chichaouga, Agadir, Ouarzazate, Tiznit, Tafraout, Houara, until we reached Mahbes, during the first year of the militarization. We went back to Agadir and continued on to Rabat, in the suburb of Temara, where we stayed for quite a while, followed by Kenitra. I am only mentioning the cities, and not the towns and villages, such as Qacem, Marmousha, al-Hajeb, Ifran, Ain Rahma, Mūlāy Ya‘qub, ‘ayn Shadya...

A year had passed since our initial departure. The second year, we started the Dour, visiting one moussem after another for forty-four saints buried within Moroccan territories. We slept in shrines and tombs of saints, such as Sīdī Mūlāy ʿAbdullāh Amghār, where we stopped for a good while. We visited the moussem of Shaykh al-Kamel, the commemoration (moussem) of Sīdī ʿAlī b. Ḥamdūsh, Sīdī Idrīs al-Azhar, and Mūlāy Idrīs al-Akbar. Sometimes we would make thirty rounds between two tombs. In some cities, we spent a whole year, in others seven months, and in others only a few days. Hence, when a disciple tells us today that he comes from such and such city, we know who he is, because we have learned the characteristics of the inhabitants of that city during our pious roaming (siyāḥa), whether they are stingy or generous, gentle or rough...”

Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkarī – may God sanctify his secret – sometimes spent days and entire months alone crossing fields and mountains, sleeping wherever night time would seize him. “I took the earth as my bed, and the starry sky as my blanket. I travelled across the mountains but I entrusted my luggage with God... I was serving destiny without knowing it. Whenever I would supplicate God, He would respond to my supplication. Whatever I sought I obtained. Wherever I went, God’s creatures turned towards me,” he says.

While the days of hunger went on, our Shaykh would eat from garbage containers. In that state, he would hear trees and rocks speak to him and converse with him. He recalls, “We had isolated ourselves from people, and this made us talk to trees and rocks. We cannot keep count of all the saintly miracles that we experienced during those years of wandering.”

He continues, “We lived with people whom you cannot imagine. We lived with the most degraded and humiliated people that exist, and yet we saw ourselves as more degraded than them because we believed that whatever they did would never equal the evil we had committed. We tried to take our lives, and God says that whoever slays a soul...it is as though he slew all of mankind. This is the reason why when someone comes to us now, no matter what his past is, he leaves us having turned to God in repentance. You may well preach to him (daʿwah) all your life, but you will never affect him. Why? Because you have not experienced these states. You cannot guide or instruct someone if you have not walked the same road. Among those whom you call sinners, evil men, drunkards, and prostitutes we have encountered the most elevated men and women (ʿillīyīn), and we witnessed a hidden mercy in them. In some cases, these people become the best. When we became a Shaykh those whom we considered the most elevated proved to be the vilest (suflī), and this only added astonishment to our astonishment.”

Among the trials that our Shaykh had to endure during those years of wandering was that in one of the jobs that he found he was accused by a fellow employee of stealing. The police came to interrogate him, and just as they were about to imprison him a man recognized him and witnessed in his favor by saying, “Among all the people on earth, he is the only one who could never steal, leave him alone.” It was later revealed that he was the person who had accused our master of theft while being guilty of it himself, and he was imprisoned for this.

Thus did he travel unaware of God’s plan. God wanted him to keep company with all of His creatures, be they pious or sinners, and that he partake in their states and their lives, until he became the teacher of states. He kept company with vagabonds, drunk- ards, drug addicts, without ever being affected by their sins. In spite of the hardship of the weather and the traveling, he never neglected prayers, which he always offered in their due times. How can one guide a fornicator without knowing his problems? How can one guide the rascal or the drug addict without ever bothering to visit them, as if our life can be reduced to a theoretical science? Thus did God perfect his training of the soul, making him a mercy unto men, be they pious or sinful. He told us once, “During my ten years of wandering I would often wonder, ‘O God, why did I have to go through all of this? What have I done to deserve this?’ But only after I met my master was I able to understand.”

Ten years had passed since his departure, during which his family and friends had no news of him. Then came the time for his return.

Recalling his return he says,

“Those ten years felt like twenty, because time on the streets passes slowly. When I returned everything had changed, my brother who was a child when I left had become a man, our house was completed, some family members had married, and others had become parents.”

During his travels, he had become accustomed to placing his complete trust in God. He had abandoned all help coming from anyone else until he succeeded in finding repose only in Him. Then came the time for his intimate union (wiṣāl).