Adil al-Kalbani was born in Riyadh on April 4, 1958 to poor emigrants from Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates who came to Saudi Arabia in the 1950s.[2][5] His father used to work as a government clerk. Due to his family's financial situation, al-Kalbani took a job with Saudi Arabian Airlines after finishing high school, whilst attending evening classes at King Saud University.[2]
After a brief stint working at the mosque in Riyadh Airport, he moved on to working as an Imam at the more prominent King Khalid Mosque.[2] He once dreamed that he had become the imam at the Great Mosque of Mecca;[2] two years later, in 2008, he was selected by King Abdullah to lead the tarawih prayers at the mosque.[2]
In Japan's city of Bandu, a center of Minhaj-ul-Quran was visited by Al-Kalbani on June 30, 2013.[6]
Al-Kalbani has said he is not a Shaykh (an authority in religious matters) but a Qari.[7]
In a tweet, al-Kalbani stated that the non-existence of church bells in Saudi Arabia pleased him.[8][9]
Mecca crane collapse
Al-Kalbani criticised a tweet from a Saudi poet that said that the cranes that collapsed in Mecca "fell to the ground in prayer". Al-Kalbani said that this was the "stupidest kind of nonsense". He sarcastically suggested that the other cranes did not collapse because they were "liberal".[10]
Segregation of men and women
He criticised the current situation of gender segregation in mosques, where women are "completely isolated" from men and only connected via a microphone. He called this a "phobia of women".[11]
Shias
In an interview with the BBC, al-Kalbani declared Twelver Shias as apostates,[12] which triggered a backlash from followers of the sect in Saudi Arabia.[13] In 2019, however, he retracted his position after reading a book by fellow scholar Hatim al-Awni, stating that he no longer considers as apostates those who "believe in one God, eat our halal meat, and prostrate toward our Qibla direction of Mecca".[14]
Stance on musical instruments
In a fatwa, al-Kalbani considered singing to be permissible under Islamic law, but retracted it in 2010.[15][16][17][18] In 2019, he backtracked on his retraction and again considered it permissible.[19] A religious singing event was attended by al-Kalbani.[20] A flute was purportedly used.[21][22][23]
