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Saudi Arabia appointed a salient ultraconservative student precocious connected Wednesday (October 22, 2025) arsenic the country's caller expansive mufti, the kingdom's apical spiritual scholar.
Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan al-Fawzan, 90, took implicit the position, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. The determination came from King Salman, based connected the proposal of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the study added.
Sheikh Saleh, reportedly calved Sept. 28, 1935, successful Saudi Arabia's al-Qassim province, studied the Quran with a section imam aft his father's death. He became a salient scholar, speaking to the faithful via the “Noor ala al-Darb,” oregon “Light the Way,” vigor amusement and via aggregate books he's authored and his tv appearances. His fatwas, oregon spiritual orders, person been shared via societal media arsenic well.
Sheikh Saleh has faced disapproval successful Western media successful the past for immoderate of his pronouncements. Human Rights Watch successful 2017 reported Sheikh Saleh, erstwhile asked if Sunni Muslims should presumption Shiite arsenic their “brothers,” responded: "They are brothers of Satan."
The Shiite “lie astir God, his prophet, and the statement of Muslims … There is nary uncertainty astir the unbelief of these” people, Human Rights Watch separately quoted Sheikh Saleh saying astatine different moment.
Such comments astir the Shiite from spiritual leaders successful Saudi Arabia are common, peculiarly amid governmental tensions betwixt the kingdom and Iran. Sheikh Saleh besides criticized Yemen's Houthi rebels for firing missiles toward beatified sites successful the kingdom.
In 2003, Sheikh Saleh was quoted arsenic saying: “Slavery is simply a portion of Islam. Slavery is portion of jihad, and jihad volition stay arsenic agelong arsenic determination is Islam.”
The sheikh besides had a fatwa attributed to him successful 2016 banning the mobile crippled “Pokémon Go” arsenic a signifier of gambling. Saudi Arabia nether Crown Prince Mohammed present owns a sizable involvement successful Nintendo and the gaming part of Niantic, the shaper of “Pokémon Go.”
Sheikh Saleh takes the station aft the September decease of Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, who held the presumption of expansive mufti for a 4th century.
The al-Sheikh family, descendants of Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab, agelong had seen its members service arsenic the expansive mufti. Sheikh Mohammed's ultraconservative teachings of Islam successful the 18th century, wide referred to arsenic “Wahhabism” successful his name, had guided the kingdom for decades, peculiarly aft the 1979 Islamic Revolution successful Iran saw the kingdom turn adjacent much conservative.
