Turning a Cloak, Asking for Rain

Salat al-istisqa is the special communal prayer Islamic tradition prescribes for times of drought, distinct from the five daily obligatory prayers and performed only when rain is genuinely needed rather than on any fixed calendar date, a rite of petition rather than routine worship. In its fullest classical form, still followed in many Muslim majority countries today, the community gathers outdoors, often on open ground outside the town rather than in the mosque itself, for a congregational prayer of two units followed by a sermon, during which the preacher performs a distinctive gesture reports describe without fully explaining, turning his outer cloak inside out or reversing it, a symbolic act hadith literature records as prophetic practice and later scholars have read variously as expressing a hoped for reversal of drought into rain or as a simple sign of humility and supplication, without the sources settling definitively on one explanation.

The congregation then raises hands in collective supplication, a posture and intensity of prayer distinct from the ordinary daily prayers, and some traditions record fasting or almsgiving in the days beforehand as recommended preparation, treating the drought itself as an occasion calling for genuine communal repentance and humility before God rather than mere ritual request.