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, died Tuesday. He was in his 80s.

Saudi Arabia, home to the Muslim 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 Saudi Arabia’s Al Saud ruling family, which has allowed women to drive, opened movie theatres and further socially liberalised in recent years, Sheikh Abdulaziz denounced extremists like those in the Daesh terror group and Al Qaeda.

The kingdom's 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.

Sheikh Abdulaziz, who became blind as a young man, became the grand mufti in 1999, during Saudi King Fahd’s reign.