DUBAI, Sept 24:

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.

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.

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 den

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