FaceOf: Abdullah Al-Asheikh, chairman of the Saudi Shoura Council

JEDDAH: The Chairman of the Shoura Council (the consultative assembly of Saudi Arabia), Abdullah Al-Asheikh, is currently on a visit to Djibouti.

A meeting was held on Thursday with Mohammad Ali Hamad, spokesman of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Djibouti.

Several issues of mutual concern and cooperation between the Shoura Council and the Djiboutian Parliament were discussed. The meeting was attended by a number of officials of the two countries. Al-Asheikh comes from a notable family of Saudi religious scholars.

He was born in Diriyah, a town located on the northwestern outskirts of Riyadh in 1948. He was educated by his father, Muhammad Al-Asheikh, a former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. He attended the Shariah College in Riyadh (now known as Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University) and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Shariah in 1975.

He studied Shariah at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and returned to Saudi Arabia to obtain a doctorate degree in 1987. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Fiqh from Imam Mohammed bin Saudi University in 1987.

After receiving his doctorate, Al-Asheikh worked as a professor at the Shariah College of Imam Muhammed bin Saud Islamic University until he became Minister of Justice in 1992, and until 2009 when King Abdullah reshuffled the Cabinet.

He is also deputy chairman of the executive office of the Arab Justice Ministers Council. He is a member of the Council of Senior Scholars and the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, as well as a member of the board of directors of the Disabled Children’s Association and Albir Society in Riyadh. He has given many lectures on Islamic economy and produced a series of lectures on terrorism and how to overcome it, which were later collected and published in a book.