Faktor-faktor yang membawa kepada Taqleed juga menyebabkan para ulama membatasi kegiatan kreatif mereka hanya kepada menyunting dan menyemak karya-karya terdahulu. Kitab-kitab Fiqh para ulama terdahulu diringkaskan dan dibuat ringkasan daripadanya. Ringkasan-ringkasan ini kemudiannya dipendekkan lagi supaya mudah dihafal, dan banyak daripadanya malah disusun dalam bentuk syair. Proses meringkaskan ini berterusan sehingga ringkasan-ringkasan yang dihasilkan menjadi seperti teka-teki kepada para pelajar pada zaman itu. Generasi ulama berikutnya mula menulis penjelasan terhadap ringkasan-ringkasan dan syair-syair tersebut. Kemudian, ulama yang lebih terkemudian menulis syarah ke atas penjelasan-penjelasan itu, dan yang lain pula menambah nota kaki pada syarah-syarah tersebut.

The same factors which led to Taqleed also caused scholars to confine their creative activity to merely editing and revising previous works. The Fiqh books of earlier scholars were condensed and abridgements of them were made. These abridgements were later shortened in order to make them easy to memorize, and many of them were actually put to rhyme. This process of condensing continued until the summaries, which resulted, became virtual ridles to the students of the day. The following generation of scholars began to write explanations of the summaries and poems. Later scholars wrote commentaries on the explanations and others added footnotes to the commentaries.