Around the 15th century, most Sunni jurists argued that all major matters of religious law had been settled, allowing for "taqlid" (تقليد), "the established legal precedents and traditions," to take priority over "ijtihād" (اجتهاد). This move away from the practice of "ijtihād" was primarily made by the scholars of Hanafī and Malikī schools, and a number of prominent Shafīʿis, but not by Hanbalīs and majority of Shafīʿi jurists who believed that "true consensus" ("ijmāʿ" اجماع), apart from that of Muhammad's Companions, did not exist" and that "the constant continuous existence of "mujtahids" (مجتهد) was a theological requirement." After the 11th century, Sunni legal theory developed systems for ranking jurists according to their qualifications for "ijtihad". One such ranking placed the founders of "maddhab"s, who were credited with being "absolute "mujtahid"s" ("mujtahid muṭlaq") capable of methodological innovation, at the top, and jurists capable only of "taqlīd" at the bottom, with "mujtahid"s and those who combined "ijtihād" and "taqlīd" given the middle ranks. In the 11th century, jurists required a "mufti" (jurisconsult) to be a "mujtahid"; by the middle of the 13th century, however, most scholars considered a "muqallid" (practitioner of "taqlīd") to be qualified for the role. During that era some jurists began to ponder whether practitioners of "ijtihad" continued to exist and the phrase "closing of the gate of "ijtihād"" (إغلاق باب الاجتهاد "iġlāq bāb al-ijtihād") appeared after the 16th century.