The era in which the polymath glossator—a vibrant but cautious interpreter of inherited and distilled tradition—set the contours of ifta’ in Egypt, may well have come to a close with the likes of Muhammad Abduh. The influence, however, and rulings of such scholars still persist in a delicate balance of reverent indebtedness and multi-madhhab realism. This paper addresses the pre-modern reliance on dominant opinions and the four madhhabs in ifta’ and laws of state, and the continued influence of scholars of this perspective, despite the influence of M. Abduh’s broad notions of talfiq (mixing and matching between madhhabs), the inclusion of Shi’i legal rulings, and the influence of western legal systems. This paper will argue that despite the three aforementioned qualities of Egyptian law, the last iterations of pre-modern Islamic law persist, at least in some domains.