The International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group of clerics led by Yusuf Al Qaradawi, has issued calls for action in response to Israeli security precautions taken towards the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The declaration:

…calls for a public uprising and mobilisation to rescue Al-Aqsa from such acts. If we do not mobilise for Al-Aqsa, what will we mobilise for. Is there anything holier and greater to the Muslims after Masjid Al-Haram and the Prophet’s Mosque, than Al-Aqsa Mosque?” “The free world, from east, west, north, and south are called on to take action to save Al-Aqsa which is at risk of being demolished at any moment in light of the unfortunate global silence. It is as if such silence is encouragement for the occupation to demolish the mosque,”…

Israeli security precautions were necessitated by the attempted murder of Rabbi Yehudah Glick, an American-Israeli activist who has sought increased access and religious accommodations for Jews at the Temple Mount.The Temple Mount is the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, and is controlled by the Islamic Waqf, while security is provided by Israel. Non-Muslims are prohibited from praying or appearing to pray, on the site. Incitement related to alleged threats to Al Aqsa mosque are a common occurrence in Palestinian propaganda.

The involvement of Qaradawi and the IUMS suggests that the protests against Israel over the Al Aqsa dispute could increase in severity, and may expand internationally. Qaradawi and the IUMS’ ability to internationalize protests through calls to action were illustrated in the Center for Security Policy report, “Command and Control: The International Union of Muslim Scholars, The Muslim Brotherhood, and The Call for Global Intifada During Operation Protective Edge.” The IUMS statement on Al Aqsa which makes references to “free world” shares qualities of previous Protective Edge IUMS statements.

Efforts to invoke violent protests in order to enforce political demands is not a new tactic. CSP Senior Fellow Stephen Coughlin led the way in demonstrating the ability by entities like IUMs to initiate “Days of Rage”, documenting their occurrence during the “Danish Cartoon Controversy.” Qaradawi himself has affirmed the role played by the IUMS in those protests noting:

We have called out [da’awna] at times and the umma rose up, in the matter of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in Denmark, that wronged the Prophet. We called on [da’awna] the Islamic umma, the

International Union of Muslim Scholars, and the umma rose up, from one end to the next, in the Easts and the Wests, in the North and the South, hundreds of millions rose up. The Islamic umma, if it found who to awaken it, would rise up and responded [to the call]. The umma has not died.

While efforts by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to tamp down on the Muslim Brotherhood may impact the size and scale of protests in some parts of the Arab world, the analysis of the the IUMS statements and associated protests during Operation Protective Edge demonstrated that Qaradawi and the IUMS maintains the ability to encourage large scale, and potentially violent protests from Yemen and Tunisia to Europe and the United States, where ever Brotherhood influence over Islamic and Palestinian-associated organizations remains strong.