The Naqshbandi way is defined more by what it excludes than by what it adds. There is no music in the gathering and no dance, the remembrance is silent rather than voiced, and the law is observed strictly rather than transcended. The path is described as beginning at the end, meaning that the states other orders arrive at after long practice are taken as the starting discipline.
The eleven principles the order works from are the eight of Abd al-Khaliq Ghijduwani, an earlier master of the Khwajagan, with three added by Baha al-Din. They are terse instructions about attention: awareness in the breath, watching the step, journeying in the homeland, and solitude in the crowd, khalwat dar anjuman, which is the one usually quoted. It means that the retreat other paths make by withdrawing is to be made inwardly while remaining in the market, so that the hand is at work and the heart is with God.
The result is a Sufism that fits a working urban population and does not look strange from the outside. That has a great deal to do with why the order was tolerated where louder practice was not, and why it recruited scholars and officials as readily as artisans. It also explains the recurring Naqshbandi involvement in politics, since a discipline that does not require withdrawal leaves its adherents inside public life.