This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Ibn Ata Allah al-Sakandari trained first as a Maliki jurist in Alexandria and was initially critical of the Sufi movement growing around him there, a documented early position distinct from the devoted discipleship that would come to define the rest of his career. He became a devoted disciple of Abu'l-Abbas al-Mursi, the second master of the recently founded Shadhili order, a documented reversal of his own earlier critical stance rather than a gradual softening of an unchanged position.
He went on to succeed al-Mursi as the Shadhili order's third shaykh, first in Alexandria and later in Cairo, where he taught until his death, a documented leadership role distinct from remaining a disciple among many within the order he had once viewed with suspicion. That a jurist who began as a critic of Sufi practice rose to lead the very order he had once criticized is recorded as a documented reversal running through the whole of his subsequent career rather than an isolated early episode with no lasting consequence.
That a Maliki-trained critic of Sufism became, within his own lifetime, the third shaykh of the Shadhili order he had once viewed skeptically marks Ibn Ata Allah al-Sakandari's career as a documented case where formal legal training and initial suspicion gave way to leadership of the very tradition once held at arm's length.