Saudi Arabia appoints Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan al-Fawzan as kingdom’s new grand mufti

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia appointed a prominent ultraconservative scholar late Wednesday as the country’s new grand mufti, the kingdom’s top religious scholar.

Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan al-Fawzan, 90, took over the position, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. The decision came from King Salman, based on the recommendation of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the report added.

Sheikh Saleh, reportedly born Sept. 28, 1935, in Saudi Arabia’s al-Qassim province, studied the Quran with a local imam after his father’s death. He became a prominent scholar, speaking to the faithful via the “Noor ala al-Darb,” or “Light the Way,” radio show and via multiple books he’s authored and his television appearances. His fatwas, or religious orders, have been shared via social media as well.

Sheikh Saleh has faced criticism in Western media in the past for some of his pronouncements. Human Rights Watch in 2017 reported Sheikh Saleh, when asked if Sunni Muslims should view Shiite as their “brothers,” responded: “They are brothers of Satan.”

The Shiite “lie about God, his prophet, and the consensus of Muslims … There is no doubt about the unbelief of these” people, Human Rights Watch separately quoted Sheikh Saleh saying at another moment.

Such comments about the Shiite from religious leaders in Saudi Arabia are common, particularly amid political tensions between the kingdom and Iran. Sheikh Saleh also criticized Yemen’s Houthi rebels for firing missiles toward holy sites in the kingdom.

In 2003, Sheikh Saleh was quoted as saying: “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam.”

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The sheikh also had a fatwa attributed to him in 2016 banning the mobile game “Pokémon Go” as a form of gambling. Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed now owns a sizable stake in Nintendo and the gaming division of Niantic, the maker of “Pokémon Go.”

Sheikh Saleh takes the post after the September death of Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, who held the position of grand mufti for a quarter century.

The al-Sheikh family, descendants of Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab, long had seen its members serve as the grand mufti. Sheikh Mohammed’s ultraconservative teachings of Islam in the 18th century, widely referred to as “Wahhabism” in his name, had guided the kingdom for decades, particularly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran saw the kingdom grow even more conservative.

The grand mufti is one of the top Islamic clerics in the world of Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia, home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, hosts the annual Hajj pilgrimage required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lives, making the pronouncements of the grand mufti that much more closely followed.

Saudi Arabia has socially liberalized under King Salman, allowing women to drive and opening movie theaters as the country tries to move its economy away from being dominated by its oil industry.