Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh has urged young people to steer clear of “calls for jihad” issued on “perverted” grounds.

“Young people should not let themselves be influenced by calls for jihad ... on perverted principles,” he was quoted by the SPA as saying.

“It is a great misfortune that our youths are being exploited to fuel sedition” and lured into war zones “under the pretext of jihad,” he said.

Those “endangering the lives” of young Saudi nationals have “disobeyed God and have sinned.”

He urged youths to ignore calls to jihad from people representing “deviant principles.”

The grand muft, in comments on Aug. 18, condemned Al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants as the “enemy number one” of Islam.

The Interior Ministry this week announced eight arrests in northwest Saudi Arabia on suspicion of recruiting young people to join IS operations in Iraq and Syria.

IS militants have seized vast swathes of Sunni territory straddling Syria and Iraq.

On June 29, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah said: “We will not allow a handful of terrorists, using Islam for personal aims, to terrify Muslims or undermine our country and its inhabitants.”

In February, King Abdullah decreed long prison terms for anybody who traveled overseas to fight or associate with terrorist groups.

Also on Thursday, IS insurgents posted grisly video footage of scores of bodies heaped in the desert they boasted were those of Syrian soldiers they captured and executed in their latest advance.

Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 160 soldiers had been executed at three separate locations around Raqa province.

The footage posted by IS showed a close-up of some 20 bodies, but then panned out to show scores more.