Controlling Anger - Purification of the Heart!

“Those who control their anger and are forgiving toward mankind.  Verily, Allah loves  those who do good” (Aal Imran: 134)

Anger in itself is not a negative emotion. In some ways it can actually serve a positive purpose. If there wasn’t any anger there would be a lot of injustice, zulm in the world. You need to have some anger to fight injustice. You need to have some anger to fight for human dignity. You need to have some anger to fight for human rights. So this is normal healthy anger. This positive anger is called courage.Courage is a mix of two states – anger + piety/righteousness. That’s positive and controlled anger. That’s the keyword – controlled anger.

And when you have something that’s negative anger, which is called rage, this is what pulls up and  you can’t control yourself. Like in America you call this road rage. In Pakistan when someone’s car bumps another on the streets, the insults that pours forth at the time--this is a rage when you can’t control it, someone does something small to you but you feel like blasting that person into smithereens. They come up, even physical fighting takes place, sometimes it can even lead to murder.Anger in itself has a spectrum – both negative & positive. But we’re going to focus on negative anger, anger which leads to rage and negative things.

v  Anger for the sake of Allah:

There’s a hadith that jo nafrat kartey hain, bughuz rakhte hain, ghussa kartey hain (Those who hold grudge, have malice and get angry)  for the sake of Allah—this is a type of imaan. And that’s why you have to have some type of anger in you, natural, healthy, controlled anger, in order to fight zulm, in order to fight oppression, and this is why in many many Hadith you’ll see, the Prophet SAW had anger but his anger was never for any personal reason. If it was anger, it was:

1. Controlled

2. For the sake of Islam. It was for the sake of something bigger, for the sake of Allah Ta’ala.

What we’re going to focus on is negative anger, anger that ruins people’s lives, and causes people’s own lives to be difficult as well as the lives of people around them.

v  Quranic Verses regarding anger:

—  “Those who control/ drink their anger (ghayzh)” (aal Imran: 134)

The word in Quran Sharif is غيظ: غ. then , ى then . ظSo this is one word that is translated as anger in English.

Another verse:

—  “When they are angry (ghadab), they forgive” (Shura: 37)

The word here is غضب, also in Urdu. So these are two different words, and there’s a slight difference between the two:

Ghayz and Ghazab

-          غيظ is when you have anger, but your niyyat isn’t to express it or take revenge. You can’t even express it, you can’t act upon it.

-          غضب is that anger which has a niyyat, an iraada that I’m going to act upon this anger, I’m going to take revenge.

-          Sometimes a person has anger but they can’t do anything about it, they can’t say anything about it because they’re in a weaker position. That will be called  غيظ.

-          And غضب is that your niyyat is that I’m going to hit back, I’m going to hurt the person or do something to the person. I’m going to take an action based on this anger.

And  when Allah Ta’ala’s anger is mentioned in Quran, the word غضب is used. When Allah Ta’ala’s angry, Allah Ta’ala’s anger is going to come out in some form.

Dog’s Analogy

So the Quran doesn’t abolish anger altogether, we learn in a sense how to train our anger. And the scholars described anger as a dog. This can be found in books; that an angry person is like a dog, that anger itself is like a dog. Sometimes dogs have this habit of barking at everything that moves. Even a car passes by, they start barking at the car. So some people are like that; they have to vent their anger at everything; they just have to express their anger. So this habit is like a barking dog.

Another type of person is a trained dog; that is what comes in use, a hunting dog, or a dog for security.It is kept with an object in mind and is used for a purpose. So anger has to be trained. Just like an untrained dog can cause problems, and  if it is trained it can be useful. Usually, what happens is that if a person is asked whether they get angry, they say no, no, I’m not an angry person.  Every spiritual disease of the heart has symptoms. Just like a physical disease, if a person is asked, are you sick? And he says I have a runny nose, I have a cough, I have a headache – if you have some disease, there are always some symptoms.

Quick Check: Do you have negative anger?

—  Are you always scolding  your kids/servants/students/employees?

—  Do people complain about your temper?

—  Does your husband/parent/sibling call you bad-tempered?

—  Do you make rash decisions?

—  Do you quickly become negative about others?

—  Are you quick to become angry and slow to calm down?

—  Ahadith:

      ▪A man asked the Prophet, “Advise me.”  Prophet (pbuh) said, “Do not become angry.”  Three times.

     ▪Someone asked, “What is the worst thing one can receive from Allah?”  The Prophet responded, “His Wrath.”  Then, the man asked, “How do we avoid it?”  The Prophet said, “Do not become angry.

This is a beautiful thing; basically we see our relationship with Allah S.W.T is reciprocal, it is very similar, if you don't want Allah to be angry with you, you should not be angry with other people. If you want Allah Ta’ala to be forgiving to you, you should be more forgiving to other people. There are many ahadith like this one, Prophet s.a.w once said, meaning of which is that  those people who cover faults of the fellow muslims, Allah Ta'ala will cover their faults on the Day of Judgment. So if you want Allah S.W.T to hide your faults cover you should cover the faults of other people.

So this is the relationship we have with Allah S.W.T which is very much reciprocal. Be soft with others, don’t be angry with others if you want Allah Swt to be Merciful towards you. So this also shows that anger is detrimental to our spiritual growth as well.

Negative Anger_ A sign of Weakness

Some scholars have actually said that anger shows weakness. In child psychology ,when you hit children it shows that you have lost; it shows that now you have lost the battle, so those who gets angry quickly often are in a weaker position, so anger comes out to compensate.

People have written that people who are sick, they are angrier more often than  a person who is well; and when a person is old they tend to become angrier than when a person is healthy, and  Women also have the tendency to become more angry than men since they are in a weaker position. So you see in a weaker position anger comes out to compensate for weakness; so sometimes being angry shows weakness, it does not show strength.

This is also a way that is destructive for our personal growth and this leads to a lot of problems ; such as divorce, which is always given in anger, and later you regret that action done in anger. So being angry often leads a person to be remorseful, being regretful of the decisions they made and the actions they took.

  

● “Anger is from Shaitan, and Shaitan is made from the fire.”

So if you look at anger, by nature it is something garam, hot; and so it is when the person becomes angry they start becoming warm, raging, boiling. You see the words we use show heat, and even medically when a person becomes angry blood pressure increases, face becomes warm; this is because that anger is made from the fire, shaytaan is made from fire.

● “Verily, anger ruins iman just as aloe ruins honey.”

Aloe is like a bitter herb, so anger ruins Iman just like aloe ruins honey, so our Iman is being compared to Honey, and Anger is something that is bitter. It will destroy us spiritually. When we are really angry, it ruins our own state, our own peace of mind.

We can’t go to sleep; we feel unwell; we are in a situation that we feel bad, and the person we are angry with is feeling fine, but our heart is suffering. And sooner or later it starts affecting us biologically--high blood pressure, heart disease, tension, anxiety, these problems, it even affects the way we look!

We start getting affected physically, a person who is happy, they look optimistic, they look fresh, their skin is good. And a person who is angry all the time, that anger comes out and they develop a bitter expression, their face becomes bitter; even when they smile, it doesn’t looks like a person who is happy, it looks like a person is constantly in anger. So anger is something that ruins a person spiritually, it ruins a person emotionally, it ruins us from inside out.

—  “Strength is not throwing someone to the ground, but strong is that person who can control his nafs when he is angry.”

This is again showing that when a person can control their nafs, can control their anger, that shows strength, that shows that they’re strong.  And when a person can’t control their anger, that shows weakness.

A pehelwan is like a wrestler, a strong person so in Islam, its spiritual. A real pehelwan is not someone who can just wrestle somebody and knock somebody off the ground, a real strong person is who - you control your anger, when you’re angry. And this is the situation when you can even release your anger, you can do something to make life bad for that person, you can do something, you can vent your anger, but still you control your anger, this shows that you’re strong. That I could’ve done something but I decided to control it. And that situation shows the strength of a person, it shows the emotional strength, it shows the spiritual strength of that person.

Anger Control

Anger of Rasool Allah s.a.w

The Prophet s.a.w had the best anger control. 100% anger control, but nonetheless he(s.a.w) said, :  “I get angry the way humans get angry, [but in this anger my tongue only speaks the truth.]”

And this is something amazing, when you read the Ahadith,you are amazed by the way that Prophet s.a.w was treated and even more by the way he(s.a.w) responded to that. Sometimes baddu, desert people, would come and they would say Muhammad, Ya Muhammad, they’d stop and sometimes they would be very rude, they would tell him that we want this and that, why do you not give it to us? 

Now if people like us had this experience, they would look down upon these people. They’d push that person away, or give them, a little piece of their mind. But the Prophet (s.a.w) always dealt with them in such a very sweet and gentle way. He would give guidance and naseeha to the Bedouins. The Prophet s.a.w is still saying, ‘ I also get angry, but I control it.’ I have full, 100% control on this anger. So Prophet s.a.w was a strong person – strong emotionally, strong spiritually.

Anger of regular people

With regular people, this anger can lead to family problems, social problems. And this is the scary part –we do understand how it causes family problem, like a person, they have issues, their husband is always angry, the mother is always angry, the sibling is always angry, it causes inter-personal problems, this happens, right?,Issues in the house.. BUT how can it lead to disbelief?

How anger leads to disbelief

Sometimes when a person is so angry, they’re so angry, they get angry with Allah Ta’Ala, they get angry with the Prophet(s.a.w), they get angry with Islam, they get angry with themselves. If in that situation, somebody tells them something deeni, gives some naseeha that ‘Brother, don’t do this, this isn’t right’ etc, And they would reply, ‘keep your deen with you, I don’t know such things’ , ‘ Keep your Islam to yourself’ and ‘I don’t care’ etc .What is this? When they say things like this, this anger is actually leading them to Kufr, to disbelief.

They are saying things that they really don’t mean but they are saying it. So this is very dangerous. In a situation when you have a person who is angry and you feel that if they will say something bad against the Prophet saw, against Allah, against you, then don’t add fuel to the fire. Don’t say something that would make them utter something wrong about Deen in their rage.

CAUSES OF ANGER:

1.      Ujub and Takabbur

Ujub is like self conceit and vanity. It means being very egotistical. Thinking about self only, that I am very great or I am the best. A person who is ego centric. A person whose whole life is about them. Not necessarily a person who has a lot of pride but they are self centered. Takabbur is in a person who actually acts on that pride. They treat other people worse. Thinking that I am better and these people are worse than me. So when you have takabbur and someone makes you angry then you will get angry because you will say that why did you say that to me? What right do you have to say that to me? I am the brother you are the daughter. I am in this position you are in this position. When you have takabbur, you think you are better than other people, you are better than so and so, when that person does something that is not befitting, then this becomes a reason/sabab for anger.

2.      Teasing and mocking

Sometimes it’s all good, it’s all play. But often you see that if a fight starts it starts because of this. Somebody didn’t like to be teased or mocked in a certain way and often you see that in families, in brothers and sisters, it started off all as a joke. So you have to be careful. Islam has also shown us the way of how you joke. That whenever you joke you should never lie.

Joking of the Prophet (s.a.w)

Prophet saw did joke, he had a sense of humor. When you read those Ahadith that once a person asked Prophet saw for a camel so he replied that I will give you a camel’s child. The person said: O Prophet saw what would I do with a camel’s child? He replied that every camel is the child of his mother. He answered by playing on words.

It is not an Islamic way of joking to tease and lie, to joke and lie or to hurt someone’s feelings. in it. Negative teasing or mocking can be a cause of anger if a person doesn’t like it.

3.      Criticism

This is often a big reason. When a person basically does not like anything bad said about them. When a person is humble, he does not resent crticism. You will take it as a positive feedback. And you will think that it is good for me. And this is something you see in the lives of Sahaba Karaam(RA)

Once Hazrat Umar r.a said,‘whoever brings to me the gift of my weaknesses, I will make dua-e-maghfirat for him. ‘

This is a very big thing. If someone was going to talk to us that I am your friend. I am going to tell you that you have this problem, you have this problem, you don’t do this right, and you have this problem. You should change the way you are. We would say “Who are you to speak to us in such a manner?” We will get angry. Who are you to say this to me? And we can’t take criticism. All we want is that people praise us.

But a person who is humble and actually wants to improve, they will take it positively. But sometimes our zarf is very small, we don’t want to take criticism – we want people to praise us, right? So when you don’t want criticism and you hate criticism, then this is a cause for anger.

4.      Desire and Hirs

Another is desire and hirs - hirs can be negative – it means wanting something that you can’t get, wanting something that you can’t afford.

Some people stand there, like kids whining that Mama, we want this or that thing, and she’ll say no no this is too much for us, we can’t afford this, then the child gets upset and angry that why can’t I get this, I want this. So this is something, hirs also leads to anger.

And then another way hirs or desire - that’s why I put both of them - that sometimes you want something to go a certain way, and when things don’t go the way you plan – you get angry. And this is very natural. It happens many times, that we plan to do things in a certain way, in a certain time frame, planning to do something at some particular time, and then something goes wrong, or someone shows up unexpectedly at the house, now they just came by and we needed to do something but we can’t tell that look I wanted  to get this thing done by this time, and inside we would start getting angry that our whole plan got ruined due to this person, this woman etc. This is just to show an example how our desires can lead to anger.

What to do in such circumstance?:

And now what you can do - in your heart you’re secretly angry at that person, thinking that I made this plan and now it’s getting disturbed. But they didn’t know, they just came by. So in that situation, you should just think that ok, this is Taqdeer. This is what’s meant to be. When you can’t control the situation, to ACCEPT that I can’t control it – this is one way to diffuse the anger. But when we get angry that we wanted certain thing to go certain way but it did not, then this also leads a person to get angry.

5.      Envy:

A person who has envy, who has hasad for somebody else, they will have anger too. They will think; why did he/she get this thing; why didn’t I get it?

This will lead to anger. And sometimes we are not angry at that person so much, but we are angry at ourselves and sometimes ,worse, we are angry at Allah Ta’ala. In reality, we are showing anger towards Allah Swt!  Because it is Allah Swt Who blessed X,Y,Z with some blessing which we didn’t want them to get.

Anger is such a big disease, sometimes it is so deep that a person can be angry towards someone else, and sometimes angry towards Allah swt, angry towards the whole world.

This anger can eat someone up so much inside, that one’s spirituality, one’s heart, one’s personality undergoes a complete change. There are some people who are really nice but when they become angry, they seem a different person altogether. This shows that anger is something that can even really change your personality. It can make a really nice person a very vicious person. So it is very important to control your anger.

Signs-How do you know you are angry?

1.      No talking

Sometimes it happens that you say that no, I am not angry, but you are. So how can you tell if you are angry or someone else is angry with you? And these are very natural things. When you are angry with someone and someone else is angry with you, there’s no talking. There is no exchange of Salaam, no conversation. It shows in your speech. When you are angry with someone, it comes out the way you talk , the way you express yourself.

There is a Hadith that once Prophet s.a.w was sitting with Hazrat Ayesha, and he was in a very good mood. He had a very loving relationship with her, a very frank relationship. He said to Hazrat Ayesha r.a that O Ayesha, I know that you are angry with me. Hazrat Ayesha asked: how do you know this? The Prophet s.a.w replied that when you are not angry with me, when you are fine with me, you are happy with me, you say wa rabbi Muhammad(I swear by Muhammad’s Rabb). And when you are angry you say Wa Rabbi Ibrahim( I swear by Ibrahim’s Rabb). So this shows that you are not happy about something. So Hazrat Ayesha then smiled, laughed and responded that I just leave your name, I don’t leave you.

So this shows that when a person is angry, it comes out. It comes out in their expression, the way they talk, the way they act, the way they look. When you are angry with someone, you don’t look that person in the eye. We say that this person should not come before us. I get high blood pressure when I see that person. I don’t want to see that person. I don’t want to look at that person. I don’t want to hear about that person. And we are so used to it that we look people in the eye.

Personal Experience

One time in one class I remember, there was one girl who was sitting to one side of me. And I was teaching, teaching and teaching. After class she came up to me, and asked are you angry with me? I said, no. She said you didn’t look at me the whole class.

So not looking someone shows that you are angry with them.

2.      Backbiting (Gheebat)

This is one of the biggest signs. You don’t do gheebat of people you love, people you like. You do gheebat of those whom you don’t like , people you are angry with. You want to backbite about them. You want to find faults about them. And you like to do this. This is sign of your anger with somebody when you try to find faults and bad things to say about that person.

3.      Telling the secrets of others

Others’ secrets are an amaanat(trust). Vioalating this trust is also a tell tale sign that someone is angry. Once Hazrat Jaafar Bin Sadiq  (ra) gave a naseehat to Muslims that if you want to make someone your friend, do this test. Tell that person a secret, and then make him angry. Then see if he tells your secret to other people? Or does he not tell your secret. If he doesn’t tell your secret, make him your friend. And if he tells your secret, don’t make him your friend.

So if a person is angry with somebody and you start telling their secrets—that she did this a year ago, she told me this a year ago, that shows that your are angry with that person and you are not being a good friend.

Anger is something that opens you up. So many problems arise from this one emotion. That’s why it’s so important, so necessary to control it. Else you are just regretting the mistakes you made in anger. What your tongue said, what your tongue did in that state of anger.

4.      Malice(Keena)

What does keena mean? It means you are angry with someone from inside, you are upset with them, but you don’t let it surface and hence you become their hidden enemy. Someone says to you that I have had this or that good news, I got into this school or got this. Outside you are like Oh Wow, MashaAllah Mubarik. And inside you are like upset. You are acting like you are a friend. You are smiling outside but burning inside. This is keena. You become a hidden enemy. You have this malice against this person but you don’t let it be known. This is also a sign of anger.

v Ten Stages of Anger

First you feel anger as a slight feeling, then it slowly starts to manifest itself. People start noticing  that you are in a bad mood, you are not looking, you are not talking. You are backbiting about that person, you are telling some secrets about that person. The highest stage, the 10^th stage, the final stage is fighting. This is what you do. Two sisters start out digging up all the bad things that the other did, and  the last thing is they are fighting. Physical fighting. So this is the highest degree.

Inside, you went through all nine stages, but the final manifestation is external. Sometimes it’s physical, sometimes verbal. With a husband and wife, it’s usually verbal. Sometimes, husbands beat their wives; this is an international problem and not limited to Muslims. Sometimes, even some wives are abusive towards their husbands. Sometimes it ends in hitting children. There’s even a Hadith about it, that if you hit your child, don’t do it in the state of anger and do it for punishment.

And never slap the child on the face. Hit the bottom of the body, hit the side of the body, but not the face. Even if you are doing it for punishment, it has restrictions and limits. This will only happen when you know how to control your anger. If you control your anger, you will say ok I will hit, but I will hit according to the regulations of Islam.

You are angry at the kid you feel smacking on the face, you still hit on the back or you think that I will cool down, talk to her and find a proper punishment. So these are the ways a mother or people can generally handle anger.

v  REMEDIES FOR ANGER

Active remedies – what can you do when you are in a state of anger.

1.      Be quiet: this is the best and most effective remedy but it is also the hardest. When you are angry you want everything to come out but you should still be quiet. This is the best and the automatic way to diffuse the situation. Basically, the solution is to handle the situation – to diffuse it. Valve is about to explode but instead of adding fuel to the fire you diffuse it. When there is a fight, it is between two people, it is like a tug of war and if one person lets go the tug of war will end. They are both pulling, one is pulling from one side the other is doing from the other side. Sooner or later the rope is going to break or someone is going to fall. The best thing is to become quiet so that the tug of war ends.

There is a joke about this that once there was this woman who went to an elder and said that there is a lot of fighting in the house so tell me what should I recite? Give me any wazifa. He gave her a piece of paper and folded it and said that whenever a fight starts at your place, place the paper in your mouth. So she went home with it and about a week later she came back and said that I don’t know what wazifa you told me but since the time you have given me this we hardly have any fights at home. 

2.      To change location

This comes in hadith that Prophet saw said that when a person is angry so if he is angry he should sit down if he is sitting down he should lie down. Changing position physically and the wisdom behind this according to some scholars is that when a person is closer to the ground they are more humble so by changing position, one would come closer to the ground , and hopefully come closer to humility.

Some scholars have also said that if that doesn’t help then you should change location in the sense that if you are in one place you should go to another. If you are in one room you should go to the other room. If you can, then leave the house. If you’re outside then come inside and vice versa. Even if you can, then just go to the bathroom.

If someone is angry at you and you are controlling and controlling and you know you might say something in return but the other person is not letting you go and asking you to stay and listen. Then just say that I have to go to the bathroom. Go there and do wudhu(ablution) – it’s the next thing.

3.      Do wudhu

Anger is made out of fire and water extinguishes it. It’s like heat in the body, when you use water and splash it on your face,  you’ll cool down.

4.      Pray namaz

There is someone who still has anger and it is not dying then pray any namaz or two rakat nafal. Pray any namaz and after namaz put your face in sajdah and make dua that ya Allah! Take this anger away from me.

These are the ways in which you can eliminate/ end/ control your anger. Sometimes a person can get so angry that they do not know what they are saying so you need to diffuse the situation and give yourself a space so that you can have a reality check.

Sometimes it happens that if two people are fighting and a third person comes or a phone comes in between then you come and say what was it that we were fighting about? It gives them a space, you change your location or you pause for a moment – it will automatically diffuse the anger.  And often you see that anger starts with a small thing. When you have some break, when your calm down you will realize that this is a small issue.

Becoming Forgiving

One way to control a person’s anger is to learn how to become more forgiving towards all of mankind, not just Muslims, everybody. Allah Ta’ala loves those who are good; in Arabic it’s Muhsineen: those who are of beautiful character, beautiful deeds. So this is a part of good ikhlaq, part of good deeds. Sometimes we think good deeds are just praying, fasting, giving Zakat, actually managing anger is also a good deed. So if a person does it in the proper way, it can actually be a neki.

Verbal remedies: What can you say when you are in the state of anger?

1.      Saying ta’wwuz

There is a hadith that Prophet (saw) saw a man who was very angry to the extent that his face was red and Prophet (saw) said that I know a phrase that if he says it, his anger would cool down and he (saw) said: Aaozuu Billah hi minashayitaan niraajeem. So saying ta’wwuz. Saying that I seek refuge in Allah from shaytaan. Either because of shaytan or because of shaytani influences, you are in anger.

But for some of us our anger is too strong and it wont be controlled by this remedy alone. Therefore you have to do active remedies as well.

2.      Saying la hawla wala quwata

In this you are seeking strength and power from Allah swt. Not to just say it once but to say it several times, repeatedly and consciously.

3.      Durood

It comes in Quran that those who send durood on Prophet saw, Allah swt sends mercies on them. He sends down angels of mercy on them. If Allah swt’s mercy will come then your anger will go away.

It comes that in earlier times in Arab culture if two people were fighting on any street or some shop, the people used to say “Sali – Muhammad (saw)” that send durood on Prophet saw that the anger will cool down. This is also a source of mercy.

Mental Remedies: This is what a person should think when in the state of anger.

1.      You should think about the anger and mercy of Allah swt

If you are really angry then think that what this person did, this person made a mistake now on this mistake I am getting so angry. I have also made mistakes and if Allah swt decides to be angry at me just like I am at this person then what would happen to me! To ponder that what is the wrath of Allah swt. And think that I want Allah’s mercy on me then I have to show mercy and be forgiving towards others.

Ø  It comes in hadith that the person who shows mercy on others, Allah swt will show mercy on them as well on the day of Judgement.

Ø  There is another hadith that once Prophet saw passed by a man and he was hitting his servant because he had made a mistake. Prophet saw not only stopped him from doing so but also explained to him that Allah swt has more ikhtayar(right) over you than you have over this person. Don’t think that you are his master, think that you are someone’s servant and if Allah swt gets angry with you then what would happen.

2.      Think that you are abd(slave) of Allah.

Think that you are someone’s ghulam, you are someone’s servant and that if Allah(swt) becomes angry with you what would happen then?So we should always remember that we are the ghulam of Allah.

Ø  There is another Hadith where the Prophet (S.A.W.W) said that whoever quickly controls his anger, on the day of Judgment Allah will protect him from HIS anger; that he will be protected from the anger of Allah (swt).

So these are the spiritual benefits of controlling your anger.

Remembering Examples of our Pious Predecessors

Something a person can actively think when they become angry: Pick somebody who you think has everything in control, who you think is the perfect example of spiritual, emotional development. Knowing the stories of Prophets(AS)and the Sahaba Karam (RA) also help.

When you know the lives of great Muslims, these are sources of inspiration and sometimes when you read them you feel like they are too extreme. But then, sometimes we are at another extreme, so by looking at their extreme, may be we will become moderate .They had such lack of anger or they had such control on anger that one is amazed that they are actually humans.

Life of RasuAllah (s.a.w)

Look at the life of Prophet (S.A.W)--13^th years of persecution ,13^th years of boycott. All his children were affected of this persecution to the extent one of them even passed away because of this persecution. Hazrat Zainab(R.A), she  passed away due to an injury she suffered at the hands of people of Makkah. Yet,after fatah-e-Makkah(Conquest of Makkah) what did he say? The Prophet (S.A.W.W) went to them and said that I will treat you as my brothers as Yusuf (A.S) treated his brothers.

Keys of Kaabah

Another famous event after Fatah-e-Makkah was that the Khana-e-Kaabah at the time was locked and the key of lock was kept by a person named Usman ,who was not a Muslim. So at that point when Prophet (S.A.W) came, he first of all went to the Kaabah, and asked Usman for the key. He opened the door, He went inside to pray namaz. So you can imagine Hazrat Ali (R.A) , Hazrat Abu Bakar (R.A) ,Hazrat Usman (R.A) ,Hazrat Umar ( R.A) are all waiting outside. Everyone is thinking that he will be made the keeper of the key. When a person usually has power he give the important positions to his friends. That is usually how the world works.

And the Prophet(S.A.W.W) comes out and he says to Usman, that do you remember when I was leaving Makkah Mukarma and I didn’t know when I was going to come back to the city ,to my home ,to my birth place( and Prophet (S.A.W.W) loved the Khaana Kaabah) and I came to Khana Kaabah to pray and I came and I saw you and I said Usman, let me go and pray in the Kabah before I go. And Usman at that time said to him ‘No.’ He refused to Prophet (S.A.W.W). And the Prophet (S.A.W) said that ‘O Usman, a day will come that I will be in your position and you will be in my position. ‘

And at that time (on the occasion of Fatah Makkah) Prophet (S.A.W.W) said that Usman, that day has come. But now I am not going to do to you what you did to me, I am going to forgive you. And he gave the keys back to Usman, who then became a Muslim .The keys of Kaabah are in the possession of the family of this Usman(ra).

So sometimes we feel such anger that we think that when I am in power I will take everything from the other person.We have this in our lives but the Prophet (S.A.W.W) didn’t do that-- he controlled his anger and when you control your anger you win people over .Usman(RA) then became ghulam of Prophet (S.A.W)!

Waaqiya/story of Hazrat Ali

Hazrat Ali (R.A) was in a battle, and when you are in battle your friends are dying in front of you, to the left and to the right. So he is fighting with somebody, and he overcomes that person he took out his sword to kill that disbeliever and what happened that at that moment that person spits on the face of Hazrat Ali (R.A).

Now, if anyone did this to us, we will slap that person ,we will be upset with them; if we had a gun we would maybe have fired it right away. Hazrat Ali at that moment--this is Anger control-- at that moment took back his sword and said I am not going to kill you and that person was shocked, that you’re not going to kill me, I just spat on your face. Hazrat Ali (R.A) said no because if I will kill you now ,I will kill you for my own personal reasons, I wouldn’t kill you for the sake of Allah. Before this I would have killed you for the sake of Allah but not now. So much anger control, so much control over oneself. This is the beauty through which Islam spread. That person became Muslim and who knows how many other people he must have converted to Islam.

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So the more we control anger, the more we benefit ourselves, and the more beneficial we are to the rest of society.

Waqiah of Hazrat Salman Farsi R.A.

Once someone criticized him, that you are unjust, You are this, you are a bad person. And Hazrat Suleman Farsi(RA) responded that ‘if on the day of Judgment, Allah swt showered me with His Mercy, then your taunts will mean nothing to me’_ He was looking at the big picture_ ‘On the other hand, if I get angry; it’s going to hurt me, it is not going to hurt you.’

Waaqiah of Hazrat Abdullah ibn Masood r.a.

Once someone robbed him. We get angry that someone robbed us. Someone said to him, why are you not getting angry that someone robbed you? He said if he stole out of need, I will forgive him. If he stole out of some malicious intent, then I will make dua that this would be his last sin. What we do is that we begin giving bad-dua(cursing) from the very beginning.

Maulana Roomi) r.a)'s example

Once a man said to Maulana Rumi(r.a) that if you say one thing to me, I am going to say ten things in return. He was showing his anger. Maulana Rumi (r.a) simply and humbly replied that ‘ Even if you say thousand things to me, I would not say even single thing to you!’ This shows how much control he had over his anger. So what he’s saying is that ‘I’m not going to be affected.’ SubhanAllah

And that’s something when a person is angry with us, or when we’re angry with somebody else, we want to escalate, we want to do something, we want something to happen. But this is one way to diffuse that we simply reply, ‘I’m a humble, what can I say.’ And to make dua for that person, to try to get a reality check and actively control the situation.

BENEFITS OF CONTROLLING ANGER

There are many benefits of anger control which are very obvious, we should take from Quran and Hadis:

1)      Iman and Sakoon in the heart. The one who keeps their anger in control, their Imaan progresses and they have peace in their hearts. Acting on anger robs one’s peace. It is when we swallow anger, that we experience peace within ourselves. And there’s a hadith that the best thing to swallow in the eyes of Allah Swt is anger when a person could have acted on it. Another hadith mentions that a person will be called on the day of judgement and granted an early entrance into Jannah because they controlled their anger even though they were in a position to act upon it.

2)      Allah swt will stop His punishment from reaching that person - a person who controls their anger – on the day of Judgment.

May Allah swt Grant all of us the ability to implement this in our lives. A number of people are in the stage that they learn how to control their anger, the more you do it at a young age, the easier it becomes. The more you let it go, let it go, let it go, anger is something that will kill you on the inside. Like a silent killer. It will spiritually, silently kill you. Controlling anger makes Life easier, dealing with people becomes easier—so we need to control these emotions. May Allah swt Grant us the ability to implement whatever we’ve read.