Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais

Abdul Rahman ibn Abdul Aziz al-Sudais (born 22 November 1962 by the Arabic article's sourced account; a competing tradition gives 10 February 1960) is the chief imam and khatib of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and, since August 2023, president of religious affairs for the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque, at ministerial rank; from 2012 to 2023 he was president-general of the affairs of the Two Holy Mosques. A renowned reciter, he was chosen the Dubai International Holy Quran Award's Islamic Personality of the Year in 2005.¹²

The Arabic article, citing the al-Shamela library and his official website, gives his birth at Al-Bukayriyah in Al-Qassim on Thursday 25 Jumada al-Akhirah 1382 AH, 22 November 1962, to the Al-Sudais family of the Abu Ruba' line of Anazzah; Wikidata gives the same date and place. The Urdu article and the French article's lead instead give 10 February 1960 at Riyadh, and the English infobox gives 23 November 1963; the museum records 22 November 1962 with the status debated and the conflict set out in his data record.²³⁴⁵

He grew up in Riyadh, studied at Al-Muthanna ibn Harith Elementary School and then at the Riyadh Scientific Institute, graduating in 1979 with excellent grades, and had memorised the Qur'an by the age of twelve in the Riyadh memorisation circle, his last teacher there being Muhammad Ali Hassan. He took his degree in sharia at Riyadh University in 1983, a master's in the fundamentals of Islam at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in 1987, and a doctorate in Islamic sharia at Umm al-Qura University in 1995, with a thesis editing Ibn Aqil al-Hanbali's al-Wadih fi Usul al-Fiqh, supervised by Ahmad Fahmi Abu Sinna; he later received a professorship in usul al-fiqh at Umm al-Qura.¹²

He was appointed imam and khatib of the Grand Mosque in 1404 AH and led his first prayer there, the Asr prayer, on 22 Sha'ban 1404, delivering his first sermon in Ramadan of that year; at twenty-two he was the youngest of the Haram's imams, and he is now its longest-serving. For many years he shared the Tarawih prayers with Saud Al-Shuraim, the pair being nicknamed the "Twins of the Haram". He delivered the Hajj sermon at Arafat in 2016. By royal decree of 8 May 2012 he was appointed head of the Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques at the rank of minister, and when the presidency was restructured in August 2023 he became the first president of the separate Religious Affairs presidency for the two mosques. He is a member of the Arabic Language Academy at Mecca, supervised the 2017 film One Day in the Haram, and founded a research chair in usul al-fiqh bearing his name at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University.¹²

In 2005 the Dubai International Holy Quran Award named him its ninth Islamic Personality of the Year, "in recognition of his devotion to the Quran and Islam"; accepting in Dubai, he said: "The message of Islam and Muslims is modesty, fairness, security, stability, sympathy, harmony and kindness." Between 2010 and 2012 he visited India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Britain, hosting a seminar at Malaysia's Higher Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies in 2011.¹

This section sets out positions reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum.

The English article reports that he has preached Islam's opposition to "explosions and terrorism", urged that Muslim youth be taught the prohibition on killing oneself and on attacking non-Muslims living in Islamic countries, and said there is no room for extremism and sectarianism in Islam; in June 2004 he led prayers for inter-faith peace and harmony before some ten thousand people in London. It also reports criticism: the BBC's Panorama programme and the Daily Telegraph quoted sermons in which he vilified Jews — in an April 2002 sermon he described them in terms drawn from the Qur'an's story of transformation and prayed for their termination — and in 2015 he framed the conflict with Iran as a war between Sunnis and Shia, which an Iraqi editor described as the announcement of a sectarian war. In a sermon reported in September 2020 he changed his tone toward Jews, arguing that the best way to persuade them toward Islam was to treat them well, as the Prophet had treated his Jewish neighbour. In 2017 his praise of the United States and President Trump in a Saudi television interview drew wide comment and criticism. The Islamic State organisation included him on a published list of clerics it called to be killed.¹²

A 2006 sermon attributed the kingdom's drought to the proliferation of sin, including the behaviour of women who, he said, were "unveiling, mingling with men, and being indifferent to the hijab" — a passage quoted in two books the article cites.¹

The museum records his faith as unknown. The English article's embedded infobox gives his denomination as Sunni, creed Athari, jurisprudence Hanbali and movement Salafi, all unreferenced; the French infobox gives Sunni; the Arabic article's categories file him among Hanbalis and Saudi Salafis; the Urdu article and Wikidata give only Islam. No article text names a school for him personally, and his imamate and presidencies are offices, which never attest a school. Infoboxes and filings are one structured tradition, not two independent attestations.¹²³

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.