Secretary-General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) Ali Qara Daghi told the AFP that his organization finds it annoying that so many Americans support business magnate Donald Trump in the 2016 election.  “This is really annoying us so much that he has these levels of support,” he told reporters.  “His remarks are not consistent with common sense or moral values because he is not honest and exploits attacks on Islam in order to gain access to power.”

It is good to hear that Daghi thinks that remarks by important people should be consistent with common sense and moral values.  The IUMS and its leadership have issued a number of statements we should revisit in light of this new standard.

[T]he International Union of Muslim Scholars [is] run by Muslim Brotherhood chief jurist Yusuf Al Qaradawi. Under Qaradawi the IUMS issued fatwas in support of Hamas suicide bombings, and the targeting of Americans in Iraq during the Iraq War, and on called for jihad against secular leaders in Syria, Egypt and Libya. IUMS is considered a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

Is it consistent with common sense and moral values to endorse suicide bombings?  Should Americans have been “annoyed” when someone called for their sons and daughters to be targeted in Iraq?  What should we think of the common sense or moral values of people who have endorsed these practices?

Qaradawi and the IUMS also took a hand in the attacks on Danish embassies in the wake of the publication of Mohammed cartoons.  Qaradawi says this in his own words.

[I]n the matter of the cartoons of the Prophet  Muhammad 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.

Qaradawi is facing a demand for extradition by Egypt for his role in the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempt to overthrow the constitution in that country in 2013.  In the wake of the Egyptian army’s move to prevent the destruction of their constitution, Qaradawi issued a formal call for jihad against Egypt.

Yet somehow Qaradawi has managed to pass as a “moderate” in the Western press even while he was expressing support for Hamas’ suicide attacks.  No one should be fooled.  Neither Qaradawi or the IUMS is moderate.  However annoying Donald Trump may be, the reason his rhetoric garners such widespread support is because of people like them.