DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — 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 liberalize, died Tuesday. He was in his 80s.

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 theaters and further socially liberalized in recent years, Sheikh Abdulaziz denounced extremists like those in the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. He also made pronouncements during his time as grand mufti viewed as sectarian and more following Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism, a strictly austere form of Islam that for decades saw the kingdom segregate the sexes, restrict music and follow other puritanical pursuits.

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.

Became grand mufti in 1999

Sheikh Abdulaziz, who became blind as a young man, became grand mufti in 1999, installed by Saudi King Fahd. At the time, the kingdom remained segregated and its people closely policed by the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Those views could be seen in the grand mufti’s earlier reported comments, such as condemning mobile phone cameras in 2004 for possibly being “exploited to photograph and spread vice in the community.”

Other remarks focused on Christianity. He joined other Islamic leaders in denouncing then-Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 speech quoting a Byzantine emperor as saying some of the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings were “evil and inhuman.” In 2012, responding to a question about Christian churches in Kuwait, Sheikh Abdulaziz reportedly said it was “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.” Those around him later sought to walk the remarks back after they drew outrage from Christian leaders.

Sheikh Abdulaziz also targeted the faith of Islam’s Shiites after Iran’s supreme leader harshly criticized Saudi Arabia’s conduct after a crush and stampede at the 2015 Hajj killed more than 2,400 pilgrims.

“We must understand they are not Muslims, for they are the descendants of Majuws, and their enmity toward Muslims, especially the Sunnis, is very old,” the Saudi cleric reportedly said. “Majuws” is a term that refers to Zoroastrians and those who worship fire.

Saudi Arabia changes

Sheikh Abdulaziz always backed the Al Saudi ruling family, part of the long intertwining between its fortunes and the power of Wahhabism in society — particularly the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution swept Iran and installed a Shiite theocracy.

He decried the “fake jihad” of Islamic extremists in 2007. Saudi Arabia for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. battled a militant insurgency in the kingdom. He also called the Islamic State group “enemy No. 1 of Islam.”

“Self-proclaimed mujahedeen with their version of jihad are only distracting Muslims,” he said at the time, using an Arabic term for holy warriors.

After a 2014 attack in Saudi Arabia, he added: “We live in one state, secure and stable under a single government that brings us together.”

But the rise of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed saw Sheikh Abdulaziz soften, change or silence his social stances, particularly on the mixing of men and women, which he once referred to as “evil and catastrophe.” He also had called women driving “a dangerous matter that exposes women to evil,” said girls as young as 10 could be married and even described chess as akin to gambling.

In 2018, Saudi Arabia ended its ban on women driving, something Sheikh Abdulaziz later supported. The vice commission lost its sway as movie theaters opened and women took more jobs. During the coronavirus pandemic, he warned the public that those who ignore social distancing and other measures “have committed a great sin because it can … lead to the loss of innocent lives or leave people with serious complications.”

Sheikh Abdulaziz’s sway waned as the Crown Prince Mohammed’s social push gained speed. It also came as the crown prince extended a campaign of arrests over corruption allegations into a wider crackdown on any perceived dissent or power base that could challenge his rule.