Jerusalem between the global and the local: The 1969 al-Aqsa Mosque fire

News of the August 21, 1969 arson of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque sparked outrage across the Muslim world, underscoring the site’s profound religious and cultural significance. The incident was also swiftly instrumentalized by state and non-state actors to advance diverse political agendas, many of which were unrelated to Jerusalem or the Palestinian issue. This article explores how al-Aqsa was cast as a transnational issue area by widening the frame to include a multiplicity of actors, and examining their cooperation, coordination, and contestation in the fire’s aftermath. It demonstrates that the crisis elevated the sacred space into a focal point of political action, marking an inflection point in the Islamization of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the ascent of political Islam in domestic and regional politics.