Ibn ʿArabī died in 1240 ce. In his lifetime, great changes took place in the Muslim world. Sufi teachings and practices were institutionalised through the formation of ṭuruq (Sufi orders). Learning and teaching were institutionalised through madrasas in which teaching posts (professorships) were dedicated to scholars from the four dominant Sunni schools. Ibn ʿArabī and several of his contemporaries were among the last great figures standing against the rising tide of taqlīd. We have seen how Ibn ʿArabī’s contemporary ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, like Ibn ʿArabī, strongly criticised taqlīd in his writings. However, Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām’s greatest student, Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, found it unwise to do so publicly in his own time. Despite being seen as the pre-eminent scholar of his age and being granted by many the title of ‘Reviver of Islam’ of his century, Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd requested that his close students not share the book he wrote against taqlīd with the public during his lifetime and that they only make private use of it. This difference between teacher and student fits perfectly with the date that has been suggested as a helpful marker for the transition from the Classical Period, in which ijtihād was the norm, to the Post-Classical Period, in which taqlīd was fully dominant over ijtihād. This change had been gradually taking place over the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries but may have reached its full effect in 663/1265, when the Mamluk Sultan al-Ẓāhir Baybars appointed in Cairo four chief judges representing the Ḥanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools; this was three years after the passing of Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām in 660/1262. This institutionalisation of ijtihād and stabilisation of the positive law due to the requirement that judges follow one specific school in their rulings was useful to the Mamluk imperial regime who would benefit from greater predictability in the justice system. A system in which judges continued to practise free ijtihād would have meant less uniformity and predictability, and the sultans could not rely on knowing the expected policies of their judges. By the end of the seventh/thirteenth century and the beginning of the eighth/fourteenth century, there was a clear system of taqlīd, leading to the emergence of what has been termed the ‘Late Sunni Tradition’ or ‘Post-Classical Tradition’.