In anticipation to the people's reaction in Medina regarding this last change of qibla the Quran states
2:142"The East and the West belong only to Allah; He guides whom He likes to the right path".
As similarly stated in 2:115,26:28,73:9 and more particularly in 2:177, Allah is the Omnipresent grasping the universe as a whole, present in all directions one may like to face and therefore Jerusalem, the Kaaba and all other places belong to Allah, Who intrinsically has no house and no place.
The prophet Solomon in the Bible similarly conveyed that transcendental notion. The Jerusalem Temple was the place where God would settle and "dwell in forever" 1kings8. It is the site towards which the prophet David's supplications were directed Ps5:8,138:2 and Daniel would later face it in his daily prayers Dan6:11. Although Solomon declared it as the direction where all obedient servants were to face in prayer if they wanted to be hearkened by God in Heaven he said
1kings8:27"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; much less this temple that I have erected".
This reality is also echoed in the book of Isaiah
Isa66:1"So says the Lord, "The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?".Without God's commission, no place has spiritual excellence or preference in its own essence. The direction in itself is therefore not something to be disputed and argued about. If one wishes to remain in a specific direction as if the place is intrinsically sacred then he may do so. He would have however disobeyed a divine injunction, prioritizing his personal desires and preferences
2:143,148,177"and We did not make that which you would have to be the qiblah but that We might distinguish him who follows the Messenger from him who turns back upon his heels, and this was surely hard except for those whom Allah has guided aright...And every one has a direction to which he should turn, therefore hasten to (do) good works; wherever you are, Allah will bring you all together...It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the East and the West, but righteousness is this that one should believe in Allah and the last day and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for (the emancipation of) the captives, and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate; and the performers of their promise when they make a promise, and the patient in distress and affliction and in time of conflicts-- these are they who are true (to themselves) and these are they who guard (against evil)".
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