Dubai: Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, who served the kingdom’s top religious figure over a quarter century that saw the ultraconservative Muslim nation socially liberalise, has died.
The grand mufti, who was in his 80s, died on Tuesday.
Sheikh Abdulaziz’s role as grand mufti put him as one of the top Islamic clerics in the world of Sunni Muslims.
While closely aligned to Al Saud ruling family, which has allowed women to drive, opened movie theatres and further socially liberalised in recent years, Sheikh Abdulaziz denounced extremists like those in the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.
Saudi Arabia’s state media reported Sheikh Abdulaziz’s death, without offering a cause.
The kingdom’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who runs the kingdom’s day-to-day governance under his 89-year-old father, King Salman, attended funeral prayers for the late mufti on Tuesday night in Riyadh.
“With his passing, the kingdom and the Islamic world have lost a distinguished scholar who made significant contributions to the service of Islam and Muslims,” the Saudi Royal Court said in a statement.
Sheikh Abdulaziz, who became blind as a young man, became grand mufti in 1999, installed by Saudi King Fahd. (AP)
