New Saudi King Abdullah has effectively banned citizens from kissing his hand or that of any member of the royal family, saying only fathers and mothers deserved such reverence.

"Brothers, there is something on my mind I want to tell you," King Abdullah told delegations of princes, officials and ordinary citizens at his palace in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

"Kissing hands is something alien to our values and ethics, and is refused by free and honest souls," he said, quoted by the official SPA news agency.

"Moreover, it leads to bowing, which violates God's law as the faithful bows only to the one and only God.

"Hence I declare ... my categoric rejection of this, and I ask everyone ... not to kiss the hand of anyone except their parents as (a mark of) devotion," King Abdullah said.

King Abdullah, 82, acceded to the Saudi throne after the death of his half-brother king Fahd on August 1. As crown prince he had effectively ruled the oil-rich Muslim kingdom since Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995.

Many Saudis kiss the hands of royals when they visit them, while junior members of the ruling Al-Saud family also kiss the hand of more senior members.

-AFP