Due to Israeli Jews being unable to reach holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City during the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank (1948–1967), the compound including the Medieval cenotaph of David was promoted as a place of worship, and the roof of the building, above the Cenacle, was sought for its views of the Temple Mount, and thus became a symbol of prayer and yearning.

[2] In 1332 the Franciscans, the officials representatives of the Roman Catholic church in the Holy Places after the final Muslim expulsion of the Crusaders, moved their headquarters to the Cenacle, having acquired it in 1332 from Sultan An-Nasir Muhammad for 30,000 ducats.

[17] According to Dominican pilgrim Felix Fabri,[18] in 1429 Mamluk Sultan Barsbay took part of the lower floor of the complex away from the Franciscans and converted the tomb chamber into a mosque.

[19] Though it was returned a year later, possession alternated back and forth until 1523, during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, when Muslim authorities expelled the Franciscans from the entire building.

[20] In 1551[20] the Franciscans were ejected from the premises of their entire Mount Zion convent,[20] possibly on account of an old 12th-century rumour that Christian workmen had discovered the Tombs of David and Solomon and the other kings of Judah.

[20] Sometime between 1600 and 1639 a domed maqam was built over the former "chapel of the Holy Spirit", and only from 1831 onwards were the Franciscans allowed to hold mass there on Maundy Thursday and Pentecost.

Between 1948 and 1967 the eastern part of the Old City was occupied by Jordan, which barred entry to Jews even for the purpose of praying at Jewish holy sites.

[24] In October 1953, Husayn Al-Khalidi, the Jordanian foreign minister and a previous Mayor of Jerusalem wrote to Moshe Sharett via the United Nations with respect to David's Tomb that: "Israel's flagrant defiance of all United Nations decisions now crowned by a further serious breach of the status quo governing the Holy Places of Jerusalem upheld by Turkish, Mandatory and Jordan regimes.

Photographic confirmation now in hand proves beyond doubt Israel's conversion of the Moslem holy mosque Nebi Daoud Cenaculum into a Jewish synagogue.".

[26]In December 2012, unknown persons completely destroyed a large number of 17th-century Islamic tiles in the tomb; the Israel Antiquities Authority has decided not to reconstruct them.

[27] A statue of King David, installed on Mount Zion in 2008 near the compound[28] by the Russian Charitable Foundation of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, was dismantled in 2018.

[32] Elsewhere, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus says that John Hyrcanus took three thousand talents from David's tomb in order to defend Jerusalem against Antiochus VII Sidetes.

[5] The identification of David's Tomb as a synagogue has been thoroughly challenged due to the absence of typical synagogal architectural characteristics including (original) columns, benches, or similar accoutrements.

According to Professor Doron Bar,Although the sources for the tradition of David's Tomb on Mount Zion are not clear, it appears that it only began to take root during the subsequent, early Muslim period.

[52] Having initially revered David's tomb in Bethlehem,[citation needed] Muslims began to venerate it on Mount Zion instead but no earlier than the 10th century following the Christian (and possibly Jewish) lead.

[54] Epiphanius' 4th-century account in his Weights and Measures is one of the first to associate the location with the original meeting place of the Christian faith, writing that there stood "the church of God, which was small, where the disciples, when they had returned after the Savior had ascended from the Mount of Olives, went to the upper room".

In 1951, archaeologist Jacob Pinkerfeld worked in the lower parts of the structure and interpreted them as being the remains of a synagogue which, in his opinion, had later been used as a church by Judeo-Christians.

[15] Archaeologists, doubting the Mount Zion location and favouring the biblical account, have since the early 20th century sought the actual tomb in the City of David area.