So obscurity is part of sincerity. Indeed, it is usually only achieved by it since the self has no portion in it. That is why he said:

Bury your existence in the earth of obscurity.

    If something sprouts before it is buried,

its fruits will never ripen.

Burying is to cover up and conceal. Obscurity is loss of position with people. "Fruits" is a metaphor for wisdoms, gifts and knowledge which the slave harvests from gnosis of Allah. That is when his nafs dies and his ruh lives.

Murid , conceal your nafs and bury it in obscurity so that it is intimate with it, happy with it and finds it sweeter than honey, and to display itself becomes more bitter than colocynth. When you bury it in the land of obscurity and its roots stretch out in it, then you will pluck its fruits and obtain its yield: the secret of sincerity and realisation of the station of the elite of elite. If you do not bury it in the earth of obscurity and allow it to make itself famous, its tree dies or its fruits drop off. The when the gnostics harvest from what they have planted of the gardens of their gnosis and what they buried of the treasures of wisdoms and storehouses of understanding remain, you will be poor, begging or trying to steal.

Sayyiduna 'Isa, peace be upon him, asked his companions, "Where does grain grow?" They replied, "In the earth." He said, "It is the same for wisdom. It only grows in the heart which is like the earth." One of the gnostics said, "Whenever you bury your nafs in earth after earth, your heart rises heaven after heaven."

Once Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was sitting with al-Aqra' ibn Habis, a great man of the Banu Tamim, when one of the poor Muslims passed by. He asked al-Aqra', "What do you say about this one?" He replied, "Messenger of Allah, this is just one of the poor Muslims. If he were to propose marriage, his proposal would not be worth accepting, and if he were to intercede, his intercession would not be granted, and if he were to speak, his words would not be listened to," Then a wealthy man passed by them and the Messenger of Allah asked him, "And what do you say about this one?" He replied, "If he proposes marriage, his proposal is accepted, if he intercedes his intercession would be granted, and if he were to speak, his words would be listened to." The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "This (poor man) is better than what the earth contains and better than this one."

There are many hadiths and sayings which praise obscurity. If it contained nothing but rest and freeing the heart, that would be enough. Al-Hadrami wrote:

Live obscure among people and be pleased with that.

      That is sounder for this world and the deen .

If someone associates with people, his deen is not safe

      and he vacillates between being moved and being still.

One of the wise said, "Obscurity is a blessing but the nafs rejects it. Display is revenge while the nafs desires it." He said, "The end of this Path of ours is only proper for people who sweep rubbish heaps with their spirits."

Someone who is tested by rank and leadership must make use of ruin in which a way that it will lower his rank, provided it is disliked rather than that which agreed to be unlawful, with the aim of treating that, like begging in shops or houses, eating in markets and where people will see him, sleeping in them, drinking with a waterskin, carrying rubbish on his head, walking barefooted, making a display of greed, miserliness and avarice, wearing the muraqqa'a (patched robe) and large prayer beads, and all that burdens the nafs which is permitted or disliked, but not unlawful.

Shaykh Zarruq said, "As it is not proper to bury crops in foul earth, it is not permitted to be obscure with a state which is not pleasing to Allah. Taking that to be analogous with choking is not sound because loss of physical life prevents every good, whether mandatory or recommended, the consensus is that is forbidden to lose it when it is possible to survive by the words of Allah, 'Do not cast yourselves into destruction.' (2:195) That is not the case with obscurity. Nothing of that misses him. Instead perfection is obtained by it, which is denial of rank and position, when its basis is permissibility." Some of them reply that loss of ephemeral life it more fitting than loss of abiding life, which is gnosis, so reflect. The story of the thief in the bath house attests to this, and Allah knows best.

I heard our Shaykh say "The truthful faqir kills his nafs with the least of the permitted and the lying faqir falls into the forbidden and does not kill it." He often forbade dark states. He said, "We have enough of the permissible to spare us from the unlawful and disliked."

Begging is disliked or forbidden by the aim of obtaining food for bodies when you have enough. If it is with the aim of sustaining life, it is not unlawful. In his commentary on al-Bukhari, al-Qastallani mentioned from Ibn al-'Arabi that it is mandatory for the faqir in his beginning. Look at what he says there. He mentions enough about it in the Basic Research . Look there. It will be discussed later.

This ruin which I mentioned can also entail fame since obscurity is being hidden from people's eyes. This may entail has great exposure.

Obscurity is the lowering of position in the eyes of people, concealing the secret of wilaya , and all that will lower one's position with them and negate the suspicion of wilaya is obscurity, even if there is some display outwardly. That is why our shaykh said, "This Path of ours is obscurity outwardly and appearance in obscurity.

An-Najibi said in al-Inala , "As for those among the Sufis who say that the muraqqa'a is fame, the response is found in the fact that Salman al-Farisi from Iraq to Syria travelled to visit Abu'd-Darda' on foot wearing a coarse mantle. He was told, "You have made yourself famous." He said, "Good is the good of the Next World. I am a slave who dresses as a slave. When I am free, then I will wear a robe of honour and not worry about its borders."

Part of that is the story of al-Ghazali carrying ox-hides on his back when he met his shaykh, al-Kharraz, sweeping market and using a waterskin to give people water. That is what I heard many times from the Shaykh but I did find it anyone else who knew it.

There is also the story of ash-Shushtari with his shaykh who was 70. Ash-Shushtari was a government minister and scholar and his father was an amir. When he wanted to embark on the Path of the People (of Sufism), his shaykh told him, "You will not obtain any of it until you sell your goods, wear tattered garments, take a banner and enter the market. He did all that and said to him, "What should we say in the market?" He said, "Say, 'I begin by mentioning the Beloved.'" So he entered the market, waving his banner and said, "I begin by mentioning the Beloved." He kept it up for three days and the veils were rent. He began to sing about the knowledge of tastes in the market.

There is a similar story about a man who was with Abu Yazid al-Bistami. For thirty years the man did not leave his gathering nor part from him. He said one day, "Master, for thirty years I have fasted in the day and prayed at night, and I left appetites and I did not find anything at all of what you mentioned in my heart. I believe and affirm all you say." Abu Yazid said to him, "If you were to pray for 30 years while you are as I see you, you will still never find a single atom of it." He asked, "Why, master?" He replied, "Because you are veiled by your nafs ." He asked, "Does this have a remedy so that this veil can be removed?" "Yes," he replied, "but you will not accept or do it." "Yes," he insisted, "I will do what you say." Abu Yazid told him, "Go immediately to the barber and shave your head and beard. Remove these clothes and put on a woollen wrap. Suspend a nosebag from your neck and fill it with walnuts. Gather children around you and say in your loudest voice, 'Children! I will give a nut to whoever gives me a slap!' Then enter the market in which you are respected in this state until everyone who knows you looks at you." He exclaimed, "Abu Yazid, glory be to Allah! Do you say this to someone like me and think that I will do it !" He told him, "Your words, 'Glory be to Allah' are shirk ." He asked him, "How?" Abu Yazid said, "Because you esteem your nafs and so you glorify it." He said, "Abu Yazid, I cannot do this and I will not do this, but direct me to something than this that I can do." Abu Yazid told him, "Begin with this before everything until your rank falls from you and you humble your nafs, and then after that I will tell you what is proper for you." He said, "I cannot do this." He said, "And you said that you would accept and do it. I know that a person will have no desire for the secrets of the unseen which are veiled from the common people until he makes his nafs die and breaks the customs of the common people. Then normal patterns will be broken for him and benefits will appear to him.'

There is also the story of Abu 'Imran al-Barda'i with his shaykh Abu 'Abdullah at-Taudi in Fes. He shaved his head, put on a gallabiya and took a loaf of bread, calling out for someone to save him from it. He did all that. There is the story of Shaykh 'Abdu'r-Rahman al-Majdhub, who ate figs from people's trees, sang in the markets. We also have the story of Sidi 'Ali al-'Imrani and his ruining his reputation in Fes which is famous. There is also the story of Shaykh Moulay al-'Arabi who wore a sack and gave people water from a waterskin. Other things which are well known.

These stories indicate that obscurity is not what the common people understand it to be: staying inside houses and fleeing to mountains. For those with realisation, that is tantamount to ostentation itself. Obscurity, as Shaykh Zarruq said, "is for the nafs to fully realise its lowest description and be constantly aware of it. Its lowest description is abasement and all that burdensome for it. So he resorts to realising the attribute of humility and its fruit in order to obtain action and the perfection of the reality."

If you said that doing things like this will entail exposing oneself to people's words and making them fall into slander, I reply that it depends on the aim and intention. If someone does any of that with the aim of killing his nafs , achieving sincerity and to heal his heart, he forgives and excuses those who talk about him. In his book, Sidi 'Ali said, "We excuse those who excuse us and excuse those who do not excuse us."

In the Qawa'id , Shaykh Zarruq said, "The legal ruling is general for the common people because its aim to establish the outward Shari'a, raise its minaret and make its words victorious while the ruling of tasawwuf is for the elite because it is the relationship of the slave with his Lord and no more. So it is valid for a faqih to object to a Sufi, but not valid for a Sufi to obey to a faqih . One must return from tasawwuf to fiqh in judgements, but not in realities.

NOTE: These remedies which we mentioned are for the state of illness. As for the one who has achieved its cure and perfected his annihilation, he is the slave of Allah whether he shows it or hides it. Abu'l-'Abbas al-Mursi said, "If someone desires to make a display, he is the slave of display, and if someone desires concealment, he is the slave of concealment. The slave of Allah is the same whether he is public or concealed."