The Prophet ﷺ taught us to turn towards Allah, Most High, by supplicating to Him for all of our affairs, particularly during times of misfortune; thus, we invoke Him to take away the affliction from us. In this hadeeth, Anas ibn Maalik(may Allah be pleased with him) reports that during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ,the people were experiencing misfortune and affliction due to a drought and famine that struck them. While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was delivering the sermon on his pulpit on Friday, a Bedouin - which is an ‘Arab who lives in the desert - stood up and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! Our maalhas perished; what is intended here: [That flocks] of animals have perished - and the plural for the word maal[in Arabic] is al-amwaal - from the scarcity of water and cultivable land. [Our] families are starving - and they consist of everyone whom the man is responsible for [i.e. al-‘iyaalare dependents], whether they be a child, wife, and so forth.’ Then, he requested the Prophet ﷺ to call upon Allah to send down rain. The Prophet ﷺ responded to the man and raised his hands in supplication. Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) reports that at that time, there was not even a “qazaʿah”- which is a small, scattered, isolated cloud - in the sky. “Then, the clouds rose up like mountains” - meaning: a large cloud flared up and spread in the sky; [and that] he ﷺ did not descend from the pulpit and had hardly finished his invocation when the heavy rain [began] to fall. “[I saw] the rainwater dripping...” - meaning: the rainwater had fallen and trickled down his ﷺ beard. The rain kept falling every day until the following Friday. Then, that same Bedouin - or another man - returned and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! The buildings have been destroyed and the flocks have drowned from the severity of the rainfall’ Thereafter, he requested The Prophet ﷺ to invoke Allah. The Prophet ﷺ responded to the man and said: “O Allah! Around us, and not upon us…” – that is to say, O Allah! send the rain down around us, and not upon us or our homes. Then, the Prophet ﷺ began to motion his hands towards the sky; and whenever he motioned to one side, the clouds dispersed. “Until something akin to a hole appeared over al-Madeenah” - namely: a circular gap in the clouds appeared, and the water from the rainfall encircled the city like a round basin, “Except the Valley of Qanaah, [which] still flowed with water for a month.” And Qanaah is the name of a specific valley from the valleys in al-Madeenah, toward the mountain of Uhud. This means that the water flowed in the valley for a month [continuously.] “No one came from outside” - from around the city of al-Madeenah, “except that they talked about the jawd.” So, [what] Anas is reporting about [here] is the abundant rainfall. The word jawd is pronounced and written with a fathaon the letter jeem, and the meaning of the word is a heavy or abundant rainfall. This indicates that the rain continued on, except for in al-Madeenah, so that everyone from outside the city could see it and report about it. From the other benefits that we can conclude from this hadeeth are that this is one sign of many that demonstrate the [truthful] prophethood of our beloved Prophet ﷺ, and that it is permissible to invoke Allah for rain during the Friday sermon. We learn from this hadeeth the permissibility of speaking with the person delivering the sermon while he is on the pulpit - out of necessity, and that it is permissible for himto stand up while delivering the Friday sermon. Lastly, we learn that one person can act on the behalf of his people and speak in their name before the rulers and others to bring about benefits and ward off harm from his community. .