RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has appointed a conservative cleric in his nineties as its top religious leader, state media said, sticking with tradition even as rapid social changes sweep through the previously cloistered kingdom.

Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan bin Abdullah Al-Fawzan was named the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia by royal decree, the official SPA news agency reported late on Wednesday.

Fawzan, who has made controversial comments on child marriage and the Shia school of thought, succeeds the conservative Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, who died in September after more than 20 years in the role.

In 2011, Fawzan publicly opposed a minimum age for marriage, after the justice ministry moved to stamp out the practice of marrying off pre-pubescent girls.

He was appointed on the recommendation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler who has ushered in sweeping reforms in a bid to diversify the economy of the world’s biggest oil exporter.

However, the deeply conservative kingdom has sought to modernise since Prince Mohammed was appointed heir to the throne by his father King Salman, now 89, in 2017.

Under his direction, the power of Saudi Arabia’s influential clerics has diminished. Many women now forgo veils and head-coverings in urban centres, non-Muslim tourists are allowed, and since 2018, women can legally drive.

Umar Karim, a Saudi policy expert at the University of Birmingham in England, said the appointment was in line with “the established Saudi religious policy of selecting the most senior and well respected Aalim (religious scholar) within the council as the successor”.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2025