Rain prayer
prayer for requesting the rain in Islam
The Rain prayer (Arabic: صلاة الاستسقاء; ṣalāt al-istisqa, "rain request prayer") is a sunnah salah (Islamic prayer) for requesting and seeking rain water from God.
Presentation
According to Muslim prophetic tradition, during a prolonged drought a man came to Muhammad as he was delivering the Khutba (sermon) of the Friday prayer in the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque, to pray and implore for the rain to fall, for the men and the cattle and the orchards suffered from the lack of water, and in response, Muhammad raised his hands in Dua and prayed to God for a downpour. After his supplication was answered with torrential rain for days, Muhammad again prayed to God for the excessive rain to stop.
On another occasion Muhammad is said to have walked out of the mosque in broad daylight into an esplanade with the congregation of priors, and prayed for rain, then performed a prayer consisting of two rak'ahs as a group while reading Al-Fatiha aloud, as he did in Friday prayer.
Ritual
In Muslim agricultural societies, in times of calamity such as drought, the Imam is asked to provide spiritual help to the community in the hope of inducing God to fall rain.
Practice
On the day fixed to perform this prayer, the imam of the mosque leads Muslims in a collective ritual to ask God to give them enough rain for agricultural and human drinking needs, and personal hygiene.
This prayer ritual takes place in the same open space outside the mosque where the two Eid prayers are held annually.
Prayers in different countries
Different countries across the world observed many times this prayer.
Thousands of worshippers across the UAE came together on 7 December 2024, Saturday to observe rain prayers, ( Salat Al Istisqa) following a call by President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The prayers were performed at 11am in mosques and prayer halls nationwide, as the country sought divine blessings for rainfall.
The public source identifies “Rain prayer” as prayer for requesting the rain in Islam. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rain, prayer and requesting.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Rain prayer”, the useful work is to connect “prayer for requesting the rain in Islam” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4166615. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2024.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Rain prayer”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Rain prayer primary sources, Rain prayer archive and Rain research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rain prayer”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Rain prayer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.