Early years and studies

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]

Al-Kalbani's first teacher in his further Islamic studies was Hasan ibn Gaanim al-Gaanim.^[5] He studied Sahih al-Bukhari, Jami` at-Tirmidhi and the tafsir of Ibn Kathir with him.^[5] He also studied with Mustafa Muslim who taught the tafsir of al-Baydawi at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University.^[5] He also studied Akhir Tadmariyah with Abdullah Ibn Jibreen and the Quran with Ahmad Mustafa.^[5] In 1994, he passed the government exam to become an Imam.^[2]

Career as Imam

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]

Personal life

He has two wives and twelve children.^[2]

Church bells

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]

Salafism

Al-Kalbani stated that Salafism is a source of ISIL ideology.^[11][12][13]

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".^[14]

Shias

In an interview with the BBC, al-Kalbani declared Twelver Shias as apostates,^[15] which triggered a backlash from followers of the sect in Saudi Arabia.^[16] 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".^[17]

Stance on musical instruments

In a fatwa, al-Kalbani considered singing to be permissible under Islamic law, but retracted it in 2010.^{[18][19][20][21]} In 2019, he backtracked on his retraction and again considered it permissible.^[22] A religious singing event was attended by al-Kalbani.^[23] A flute was purportedly used.^[24][25][26]