Was the early Qibla in Petra, Jordan? A questioner asks this to Dr. Shabir Ally in a response to Dan Gibson’s work. When we cite a scholar, we should cite an authentic scholar. 

Dan Gibson does not represent the scholarship of Islam. You have Muslim scholarship and you have non-Muslim scholarship who look at the historical facts on the ground. Most of these non-Muslims agree that Muslims have always prayed towards Makkah with the exception of when we prayed towards Jerusalem. They have never questioned this. 

Dan Gibson came up with a theory that Muslims were praying towards Petra in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He has found some architecture of some early mosques and based it on those that Muslims prayed towards Petra. However, this has been answered by David King who is an expert dealing with early mosques and directions. His understanding is that Muslims had an idea of directions based on the rising points of the sun and so they oriented their mosques to where they believed Makkah was. It was never their intention to point the mosques towards Petra but Makkah.