employs the proper cause, the decreed outcome is brought about; and when he neglects the cause, the outcome is withheld. Supplication is one of the strongest of all causes—nothing is more beneficial. Thus, whenever a servant is inspired to invoke his Lord, the answer is at hand. Reason, revelation, and the collective experience of nations all agree that drawing near to Allah, seeking His pleasure, and showing kindness and beneficence to His creatures are among the greatest means of attracting every good, while their opposites are among the greatest causes that attract every evil.

Never have Allah’s favors been procured, nor His punishments averted, by anything comparable to obedience to Him and benevolence toward His creation. The Quran is explicit in linking recompense to good and evil deeds; whoever understands this principle reaps its benefit. Still, the effect of supplication may fail to appear for several reasons: the supplication itself may be weak—displeasing to Allah because it oversteps due bounds; or the heart of the supplicant may be weak, inattentive to Allah, not fully gathered upon Him at the moment of prayer; or an impediment to acceptance may exist, such as consuming the unlawful, or being dominated by heedlessness and passion—for Allah does not accept a plea that issues from a heedless heart. Allah is the One who grants success.

When its need arises, the Rain-Seeking Prayer is an emphatically recommended sunnah by unanimous agreement of the scholars, owing to the numerous sound reports concerning it. Among them is the narration recorded by al-Bukhari (1012) and Muslim (894) from ʿAbd Allah b. Zayd: “The Prophet ﷺ went out to seek rain, faced the qiblah and supplicated, then turned his cloak inside out and performed two rakʿahs, reciting aloud in both.”

Abu Hanifah, however, did not regard it as a prescribed prayer, but his position is overruled by the established Sunnah.