The prayer in Chino, coinciding with Ramadan — which from its Arabic root means scorching heat or dryness — included clergy from Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Source: sbsun.com

Prayer for rain is actually common across different faiths, said Dr. Ahsan M. Khan, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Los Angeles Chapter and organizer of Saturday’s interfaith event in Chino.

Imam Mohammed Zafarullah, the U.S. Missionary & Minister for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of the southwest region, wraps the prayer garment before leading the Islam-Comprehensive Prayer for Rain, before the Interfaith “Prayer For Rain” religious spiritual gathering, at the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino, CA., Saturday, June 20, 2015

CHINO >> They came from diverse religions, to seek, with uncommon unity, a spiritual solution to an earthly problem — California’s four-year drought.

While they prayed, a drought-driven fire raged in the San Bernardino Mountains, dislodging people from their homes and sending great plumes of smoke into Joshua Tree National Park. And Southern California sweltered under near or at triple-digit heat, its year-to-date rainfall totals a fraction of what they once were from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire.

With lakes drying up, water at a premium and the government forcing people to use less water, Imam Zafrullah Hanjra stepped in front of more than 100 congregants at the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino on Saturday with a plea to the heavens.

“We are asking you, God, to send the rain upon us,” he said, as the mosque’s members took part in a traditional Islamic prayer on purple and red blankets in the parking lot, under the beating sun.

He wasn’t alone.

Across Southern California, at mosques, among tribal members, among various faiths and cultures, clergy and congregants alike are looking to the divine to ease the pain of drought.

The prayer in Chino, coinciding with Ramadan — which from its Arabic root means scorching heat or dryness — included clergy from Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The echo from their prayers didn’t quite stretch nearly 200 miles away, near the banks of the Colorado River, but the call for rain was just as succinct. It’s here where June Lievas prays for water so that the insects, rabbits, foxes and wild burros can survive in a desert where temperatures have been hovering around 115 degrees.

The Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, which is contained at the eastern edge of San Bernardino County, has no spiritual ceremony for rain, but “in the stories of our people, we came from the animals,” said Lievas, the tribe’s secretary-treasurer.

Lievas said her individual prayers are for life-giving rain, which would nourish plants, provide food and promote life among the complex interlocking web of the Earth’s ecology.

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