1912 - 1999
Influential religious scholar and leader in Saudi Arabia.
Born in Riyadh in 1912, Abdul-Aziz Bin Baz (also known as Ibn Baz and Ben Baz) began his religious studies at an early age, memorizing the Qurʾan and taking tuition from members of the most notable religious family in the country, the Al Shaykh, descendents of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. At age 20 Bin Baz lost his eyesight due to illness, but his rise through the religious establishment of Saudi Arabia was steady. He was a religious judge in the Kharj region beginning in 1949. He worked for many years in Islamic higher education before being named, in 1975, chairman of the Saudi govern-ment's Department of Islamic Research, Guidance, and Proselytizing with the rank of minister. He became the highest religious authority in the country in 1993, when he was appointed grand mufti and head of the High Council of Ulama.
Bin Baz was influential at home and abroad, defining a strict, conservative interpretation of Islam; supporting Muslims under threat in such places as Palestine, Bosnia, and Kashmir; and issuing fatwas on a variety of subjects, including a notable one that declared that Earth was flat. Bin Baz played a prominent role as a defender of the Al Saʿud during the 1990s against domestic Muslim opposition groups such as the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights. Bin Baz died in 1999.
Bibliography
Fandy, Mamoun. Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
Yassini, Ayman al-. Religion and State in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.
— ANTHONY B. TOTH
