A Jewish prayer book is now a “highly dangerous development” in the Middle East according to the region’s Muslim leaders.

That was the Arab League’s description Sunday of reports that Israeli police are testing allowing Jewish prayer books — siddurim — onto the Temple Mount. The League warned that allowing them could establish new Jewish religious practices and alter the “historical and legal status quo.”

It wasn’t the only alarm sounded during Sukkot.

Over 1,000 Jews visited the Temple Mount on Sunday, with some openly praying and carrying the Four Species.

For perspective, roughly 80,000 Muslims attended the first Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan earlier this year. In normal years, Ramadan Friday attendance can reach 200,000.

For the Muslim world, Muslims were “worshippers” while Jews were “extremist” Israelis conducting “Talmudic rituals.”

Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh warned that Israel risked transforming the political conflict into a “religious war.” He declared the entire 144 dunams of the Temple Mount an exclusively Muslim place of worship that cannot be divided or shared.

The reaction extends well beyond the Palestinian Authority.

Jordan condemned Sunday’s Jewish visits and again declared all 144 dunams exclusively Muslim. And Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have jointly used the same formulation: the entire compound is exclusively for Muslim worship and the Jordanian Waqf has exclusive jurisdiction to administer it and regulate entry.

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the effort to redefine the Temple Mount “status quo,” transforming restrictions on Jewish prayer into a broader claim that the entire compound is exclusively Muslim.

Sukkot takes the story further.

There is no question that Israel is changing its own practice. For decades, Israeli governments maintained the policy that Muslims prayed on the Temple Mount while non-Muslims visited. Israeli police restricted Jewish prayer and barred siddurim and other Jewish religious objects.

Israel observed those restrictions for decades. But it never enacted a permanent statutory ban on Jewish prayer or agreed that the entire Temple Mount would forever be exclusively Muslim.

Now Israel is allowing some Jews to worship at Judaism’s holiest site.

The response is not simply a demand that Israel return to its previous practice. Multiple Muslim governments are declaring that all 144 dunams are exclusively Muslim. The possibility of a Jew carrying a siddur is described as a “desecration of its sanctity,” and jihadi calls for a “religious war.”

And this is happening during Sukkot, one of Judaism’s three biblical pilgrimage festivals, historically centered on Jews traveling to Jerusalem and the Temple. Jews were making pilgrimage there during Sukkot more than a thousand years before Islam existed.

A small number of Jews praying peacefully at their holiest site during their pilgrimage holiday is used as incitement to jihad. And Muslim governments demanded that the “international community” take actions against the Jews.

Perhaps it is time for the international community to explain to radical Islamists what coexistence means.