The Inclusion of the End in The

Beginning (Indiraj al-Nihayat fil

Bidayat)
Indiraj al-nihayat fi’l-bidayat meaning “The inclusion of the end in the beginning”, is
a phrase used in the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi order to describe a distinctive
sequencing of spiritual practices. Introduced by Shaykh Baha’uddin Naqshband (r.a.)
in the fourteenth century, it is a technique designed to aid in overcoming the
obstacles that keep human beings from drawing near to God.

Human beings forget their Creator for two reasons. The first is because human
beings are drawn to the external world. The other reason involves the human being’s
egoic self, and what is to be found within it. To obtain nearness with God (ma’iyyat),
it is necessary to free oneself from the slavery of both the external world and the
sense of being a separate self (I-ness, which is ego). Most shaykhs first focus on
freeing the seeker from the external world.

They give priority to the purification of the subtle centers of consciousness of the
world of creation: the self, and the four gross elements (air, fire, water, and earth)
that compose the physical human body. This journey is accomplished through
rigorous spiritual practices and takes a very long time. If someone follows this path,
and if something goes wrong in the long period that it takes to complete it, the seeker
is not able to reach the goal.

Hazrat Khwaja Baha’uddin Naqshband (r.a.) was aware of the significant risk
seekers faced when undertaking this journey. He felt that as the distance from the
period of prophethood increased, seekers’ capacity and ability to traverse the
spiritual path had deteriorated. Seekers no longer had the same dedication, passion,
and courage. Keeping this in view, Hazrat Khwaja Baha’uddin Naqshband (r.a.) with
God’s help, discovered a shorter and easier method, the inverse of the method being
practiced at that time.

He focused first on the purification of the heart and then went through activating the
four other subtle centers of consciousness of the world of divine command. Only
then did he deal with the subtle centers of the world of creation. This is principally
why this method is known as “where others end, there marks our beginning”. With
this method, as discussed previously, seekers are given just a taste of the final
destination in the initial stages of the journey, with the seeker only fully
understanding its reality at the end. Hazrat Khwaja Baha’uddin Naqshband (r.a.) said
that this method was quick and it involved neither great austerities nor great
hardships, but allowed seekers a brief but sufficient survey of the path. In this way
the details of the path are left for later and every effort is made to reach the final
destination as quickly as possible.
Hazrat Shaykh Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi (r.a.) appeared like a sun on the firmament of
guidance. He made this path of reaching the highest station one that is of greatest
benefit to the most people. In taking this path to its zenith, he illuminated the world.
He described the details of the world of divine command and systematized the
teachings. Hazrat Shaykh Ahmad Faruqi Sirhindi (r.a.) said that if seekers are
engaged in detail with God’s names and attributes, their path to God is obstructed
because there is no end to the names and attributes of God. Practicing this method,
only those seekers completing the journey in detail can reach the final destination.

In the light of a blessed hadith – that human beings should be treated with love, and
that things should be made easy rather than difficult for them, Hazrat Sayyid ‘Abdul
Bari Shah (r.a.) made a number of significant changes in Mujaddidi practices. Hazrat
Sayyid ‘Abdul Bari Shah (r.a.) was the spiritual axis of his time and as a renewer of
religion (mujaddid) was able to introduce the principle of “where others end, there
marks our beginning” to the rest of the orders with the consent of their founders.
Shaykhs of some other orders also wanted to introduce this principle to their own
teaching, but were not in a position to make changes. The qualities, spiritual status,
and miracles of a renewer of religion, through God’s help, facilitate the opening of
new paths. There is no doubt that this was a historical feat of revival in the
development of Sufi training and education.
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 THE PRACTICES

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The investigations of those who travel the Sufis path are practical and personal, not
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AnasayfaMansour, Ibrahim Mansour, Ibrahim

Mansour, Ibrahim
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

The Devotional Texts of Medieval Mystics in the Muslim Mediterranean: The Shadhili
Sufi Order, 13th–15th Centuries

Mr. Mansour is a PhD candidate in the History Department at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. He completed his undergraduate studies in Political Science and Middle
Eastern Studies at Rutgers University (2008) before studying Arabic and Islamic Studies at
the Sibawayh Center in Cairo, Egypt (2008–2010). He then completed his MA in Arabic
Studies, with a concentration in Islamic Studies, at the American University in Cairo (2013),
where he was also the Middle East Librarian & Specialist from 2012–2013. Prior to arriving
at ANAMED Mansour was a dissertation fellow at the American Research Center in Egypt
(2017–2019).
Mansour is writing an intellectual and doctrinal history of the Shadhili Sufi order which takes
into account the sociopolitical, cultural, and intellectual context of medieval mystics in the
Muslim Mediterranean. He focuses on the order’s early history—from the 13th to the 15th
centuries—and seeks to understand how the order’s earliest thinkers were engaging with the
tradition which preceded them as well as with their own intellectual milieux. He uses the
Arabic term tadbīr  (“governance” or “management”) as an anchor for his history of the
Shadhili order, as their teachings revolve around the doctrine of isqāṭ al-tadbīr, or the
“abandonment of tadbīr”—that is to say, the utter reliance upon God. Tadbīr, coincidentally,
was a widely used term in the Islamic intellectual sphere at the time, allowing him to explore
how the Shadhilis were interacting with the most thought-provoking discourses engrossing
the intellectuals and scholars of the medieval Muslim world. Thus, while he focuses on the
early Shadhili Sufi order, his scholarship represents a broader contribution to the study of
Islam.

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