RAIN

Arabic mat̤ar ( مطر‎ ), Heb. ‏מָטָר‎ mātor . Mentioned in the Qurʾān as one of God’s special mercies. Sūrah vii. 55 : “He it is who sends forth the winds as heralds before His mercy ; until when they left the heavy cloud which We drive to a dead land, and send down thereon water, and bring forth therewith every kind of fruit.” Prayers for rain are called Ṣalātu ʾl-Istisqāʾ , and consist of two rakʿah prayers. Anas says that on one occasion they were caught in the rain, and the Prophet took off his garment until he got wet, and they said, “O Prophet, why have you done this?” He replied, “This is fresh rain from our Lord.” ( Mishkāt , book iv. ch. liii.) RĀʿINĀ ( راعنا‎ ). A word the use of which is forbidden in the Qurʾān, Sūrah ii. 98 : “O ye who believe! say not to the Apostle ‘ Rāʿinā ’ ( i.e . ‘Look at us’), but say, ‘ Unz̤urnā ’ ( i.e . ‘Regard us’).” These two words have both the same signification; but Muḥammad had a great aversion to the use of the word rāʿinā , because it had also a bad meaning in Hebrew (see al-Baiẓāwī, in loco ), alluding, perhaps, to the Hebrew verb ‏רוּעַ‎ rūaʿ , which signifies “to be mischievous or bad.”