The settling of Sunni law and increasing prominence of "taqlid" had at one point led most Western scholars to believe that the "gate of "ijtihad"" was in fact effectively closed around 10th century. In a 1964 monograph, which exercised considerable influence on later scholars, Joseph Schacht wrote that "a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that from that time onwards no one could be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in religious law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at the most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all."