Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, the ultraconservative Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Asheikh, died on Tuesday after having served as the kingdom’s top religious authority for more than two decades. Sheikh Abdulaziz was appointed in 1999 to the head of the Council of Senior Scholars, a government body that issued religious edicts. The council once held considerable sway, both in Saudi Arabia and for Muslim communities around the world. But its authority has waned over the past decade as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud has remade the kingdom, loosening social and religious restrictions while consolidating power under himself. Prince Mohammed led a funeral prayer for him on Tuesday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.