have actually handed over their remote control to others
And what happens is, every now and then that remote control gets pressed
and the moment it gets pressed, there erupts a wave of anger
And when such wave of anger erupts, it is not the mind but tongue that takes charge of action
And where there is no synchronizing between the tongue and the mind, what happens?
We realize later how much harm we have caused to our relationships
So today we will discuss anger and with me is Dr. Farhat Hashmi
Peace be upon you and The Mercy of Allaah and His blessings
Onto you Peace and The Mercy of Allaah and His blessings
And with us is Sr. Yasmeen as well
Peace be upon you and The Mercy of Allaah and His blessings
Onto you Peace and The Mercy of Allaah and His blessings
Learned Doctor! Please tell us about Anger, there is not a single house or a single person who can claim that they never got angry
A lot of people misuse their anger and also justify their anger as well,
so we would like you to guide us in the light of Qur'an and Sunnah
Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allaah and His blessings
All our Praise is for Him (Allah), and we invoke His blessings on His Noble Messenger (Muhammad)
To proceed
I seek refuge with Allaah from the accursed Shaytaan
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious the Most Merciful
My Lord, expand for me my breast and ease for me my task
And untie the knot from my tongue
That they may understand my speech
We were discussing about the reasons for failures of marriages
and identify those things which turn a happy home into a failed home
That cause separation and differences between husband-wife
and they get distanced from each other and finally the issue ends up in divorce
So from these causes, one of the prominent one is ‘anger'
It is a fact that each person gets angry in a little or large amount on certain issues
There is nobody who never gets angry
but every person displays anger in different way
It is one thing to be angry, but the question that arises is what should we do if we get angry?
The Qur'an guides us (Arabic Verse)
“And those who save themselves from big sins and obscenity, and forgive people whenever they are angry"
It is not that they don't get angry at all, they do get angry,
but they control their angry and the mistakes which made them angry
or the attitude or behavior of someone that made them angry
They overlook those mistakes and forgive the shortcomings and weaknesses of people
because life cannot move on without it.
It is also mentioned in the Qur'an, (Arabic Verse)
“They swallow their anger and pardon people and Allah loves the doers of good"
Thus it is among the characteristic of a believer, it is the identification of a good human being
that whenever he gets angry, he controls it
This means that one does get angry but whenever one gets angry he will control it and how does one control anger?
It can be controlled when he has decided firmly about controlling it with an intention that,
“I have to control my anger"
And as controlling anger itself is a difficult task
But if a person does not control their anger
but fires it over others then he gets out of control and it causes a lot of harm
And then the hardships that follow it are enormous
Therefore a person should make arrangements from the beginning itself
If any such situation arises, especially from those who are around him who have a habit of getting angry regularly
he decides his response right from the beginning
And a person who knows that Allah loves the doers of good, then out of his love for Allah, such a person can control his anger easily
According to a Hadith, a strong man is not the one who overpowers another strong man (in a wrestling)
but one who controls his anger and swallows his anger when someone has wronged him
Thus he overpowered himself, his own shaytan as well as the shaytan of the other person. In other words, he has defeated three
A wrestler can defeat only one person at a time but one who controls his anger
is able to conquer his own self, his shaytan and the shaytan of the other person too
Just imagine how strong character such a person possesses!
And how excellent he can be and how beloved he can be to Allah, one who shows such response during anger!
And if a person realizes that anger compiles all evil and a lot of evil comes out of anger,
only then a person has to decide that he has to control his anger
There is a narration from a companion of the Prophet (peace be upon him)
that a companion requested, “O Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) please advise me something"
He replied, “Do not get angry"
The man says that I pondered upon this advice of the Prophet (peace be upon him)
then I discovered that anger compiles all types of evil
That means anger is not only being upset but it gives rise to many other bad things
and causes lot of destruction
Therefore if a man manages to control his anger then automatically he will be saved from many other sins too
and will be protected from many destructive consequences
Even if a man observes his own condition when he is angry
How the face of a person does appears when he gets angry?
How his ways of speaking changes?
His mind gets dumb and his conscience gets disturbed too
The person stoops down from the level of a human
Thus if a person keeps a watch on himself as to how his attitude
and his looks appear when he is angry, even then he can manage to control his anger
Some people start talking a lot when angry while some raise up their hands (to hit)
and some reach to such an extreme when angry that it results in killing too
This destroys the Deen and Duniya of the angry person
It is a fact that a furious person becomes frantic and his mind goes bankrupt
Some people appear to be under the spell of madness when their anger turns wild
and their mind is in no position to work
One should think about it that nobody likes to see a person in such a condition
and others make fun of such a person who behave like a mad person when angry
But if a well-educated and matured person stoops down to such a level of anger,
what kind of image is he portraying before others?
In order to control anger, you must remember one more thing;
whoever swallows his anger is also shielding himself from Allah's anger
Abdullah ibn Amr says that he asked the Prophet (peace be upon him),
“Which thing can keep me away from the wrath of Allah so that I can protect myself from being disliked by Allah?"
The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied, “Don't be angry"
This means that if you waive off others from your anger then you won't be facing the anger of Allah as well
And who amongst us does not wish that the fire caused due to his sins be extinguished
and his sin, that will make the anger of Allah increase, be cooled too
Thus whoever wishes such thing for himself should exempt others from being a victim of his anger
In the same way, a person who does not display anger will receive excellent reward for his control over his anger
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Whoever swallows his anger in spite of being in a position to show it,
which means that a person is in a position that no one can stop him nor harm him if he shows his anger
then Allah will fill the heart of such person with hopes (of reward) on the day of judgement"
This indicates a good consequence for him
In the same way controlling anger is a way to enter heaven
A man requested the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him),
“O messenger of Allah! Guide me to a deed that will lead me to Jannah (heaven)"
He desired to go to heaven desperately so he wanted to know about the deeds that can take him to heaven
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) replied, “Don't be angry. You will get Jannah (heaven)"
Thus we can see that by not getting angry nor displaying anger, even this life become like Jannah (heaven)
Your respect in the hearts of others increases
If someone has wronged you or reduced your rights and that made you angry but you managed to control it,
so in such circumstances, even in this world, the hearts of others become soft for you
And it generates love, respect and honor for you in their hearts and in the hereafter of course
This life will be heavenly, as well the entering the Jannah (heaven) in the hereafter will also become easy
if a person develops this quality in him
There can also be a possibility of a person being unable to control his anger,
then at the most it should appear on his face
As it is narrated about the Prophet (peace be upon him) that whenever he got angry
his blessed cheeks used to turn red, his face used to turn red
And thus the companions used to realize that the Prophet (peace be upon him) is angry and they used to observe silence
The Prophet (peace be upon him) never uttered a word from his mouth,
nor he used to accuse, curse nor abuse
but if at all he got angry at someone he used to say about the person “What has happened to him! May his forehead be with dust"
And this too used to be a Dua, forehead being with dust means that may the person perform more prostrations,
putting his forehead on the earth and prostrate before Allah, and may he worship Allah and do more good deeds
In a way he used to pray for him, whoever did an act that made him angry
In the same way, when angry a person should not utter any such words from his mouth
because you can see that the person who displays uncontrollable anger he is actually causing hardship for his own self
because at times a person does not realize that whatever he is speaking in anger, can cause more difficulties for him
Thus a person though appears that he is harming others for time being but actually he is harming his own self
and all those things (done in anger) will return to him in form of harm
There were two men; one of them was deeply involved in worship whereas the other was not so much into worship but a sinner in a way
One day the man who was a devout worshiper told the sinner in anger,
“By Allah you will never be forgiven and Allah will never let you enter Jannah"
Then what happened? The Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“Allah said to the sinner that you may enter Jannah via my Mercy and Kindness but said to the other,
“Were you aware of my decisions? Who are you to decide who will enter Jannah and who will not?
Were you the manager of the affairs which are in my hands? Take him to Hell"
Just consider the consequence of a person who appeared to be devout but just due to uttering one wrong thing
And the other person who was not so devout but managed to control his anger and did not respond
but remained silent in spite of listening to such a big accusation. So Allah pardoned him by His Mercy and lets him enter Jannah
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said “By Allah, who controls the life of Abul Qasim,
that man uttered only one sentence, just one sentence but it destroyed his life and hereafter both"
Thus anger is something that can destroy this life and the hereafter too.
Many a times a person gets angry and unable to be controlled
When he is stopped he tries to justify himself and says,\N“I am on truth and I will get angry as it is my right to be"
Getting angry is not a right nor is losing your mind a step of intelligence
rather even in such situation a person should think, “What would be a better way for me"
In the same way, there are some people who curse when they are angry, some mothers begin to curse their own children
And supposed if those curses are accepted by Allah then who will be ruined? What will be the end result of such a loss?
The Prophet (peace be upon him) has instructed, “Pray for only goodness upon yourself.
Pray for only goodness for your family, because angels respond with Ameen to your supplications."
Which means whatever supplications you make, Ameen is attached to it.
It is reported in Sunan Abu Dawood, that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“Do not curse upon yourselves, nor upon your children, nor upon your servants nor upon your wealth because
It could be that the prayers may coincide with the moments during which whatever is asked from Allah is responded"
That is why it is extremely necessary that a person should not use his tongue (wrongly) when in anger but rather adopt silence
Sometimes it happens that you are teaching something to your child, it could be some household chores or related to knowledge and
The child is unable to grasp what is being taught so he puts his questions, or some student of knowledge keep on questioning,
it can happen that the temper of the person during such times may not be under control
The Prophet (peace be upon him) instructed three times, “Teach people and make it easy for them,
teach people and make it easy for them,"
And twice he said, “When any one of you gets angry then he should adopt silence"
which means that this is the best cure for anger that a person does not speak (when angry)
And as it is instructed in the Qur'an, “Wal qazimeenal Ghaiz"\NQazimeen means to tie a bag tightly and normally I explain it this way,
Like an open necked bottle of boiling water which, if not covered by a cork and left as it is
then the water may sprout out with sprinkles of hot water falling upon someone causing burns
In the same way when a person is boiling with anger and if he opens up his mouth then it gets sprinkled upon others causing burns
And the scars of the wound remain for a long time.
The person may regain his cool after getting angry but the others remain victim of that burn,
causing hatred in their hearts and spoiling many future matters
A person should swallow his anger for the sake of Allah
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, there is no better sip which is taken by a worshiper than the sip of anger
which he takes, to achieve the pleasure of Allah believing that tomorrow I will be able to see my Lord,
so today I will control my anger even though I am right
Sometimes it happens that a person is displaying anger upon his family members who do not even know the reason behind it
And they are confused and upset as to why it is happening
A similar experience happened to me as well when once I scolded my daughter
and she was telling me, “I did not understand, why did you scold me"
It was then I realized that at times an issue may pop up in our thoughts
or we spot something that is happening which we do not understand the reality behind it
And we start getting angry upon others without informing them the reasons of our anger
Sometimes we start screaming, shouting while sometimes we start speaking badly, sometimes we snatch away the book from a child's hand
Sometimes we bang the door and sometimes we thump kitchen utensils, some people even throw away food and some tear their clothes
and some injure their own heads
All such behaviors are unwise and harmful too,
so a person should work upon himself while counseling his own self and apply control upon himself because
Allah loves such people who swallow their anger and pardon the faults of people
Besides this, a person should be very careful and avoid making any decision when he is in the state of anger
Some people divorce in the state of anger and then their poor wives keep on looking for answers,
"My husband divorced me in a spate of anger, has the divorce taken place?"
Do remember that no one divorces while in love but divorce is given when a person is angry
In such situation a person should not take any decision
and even if a person decides for a divorce yet he should do it in the state of calm mind thinking carefully about everything
Considering everything before he decides so that he can be saved from loss
So these are a few things which is taught in our Religion about anger
and how we look at it and how should it be controlled and what are the harms of anger and what are the benefits of swallowing anger
Also what are the benefits in this life and what are the benefits in here after so we should be careful
May Allah reward you with goodness
Respected doctor! There is a very common question that comes up, rather justification
that many people during conversation do agree that anger should not be displayed but it is a part of family culture
Rather they are very particular about asking in defense that if it is genetic as everyone in the family,
the father, the grandfather and all, everyone keeps on getting angry
What are your guidelines with regards to this?
It is okay, there are some people who have a strong temper and in some families it is seen more often
but when a person learns Deen and gains knowledge and receives taribyah (motivational information)
Then he is able to control (his anger)
The tribe where the Prophet (peace be upon him) was sent, the tribe of Quraish was a very angry one
and at times they were even very harsh and cruel
The overall temperament of the Arabs was nothing but harshness and they fought for years
but when Islam entered their life it made them humble and taught them good behavior so they were able to control their anger
Whether it is genetic or due to any other reason, anger is anger and as per the information from the Qur'an and Sunnah
we come to know that one will get angry but one has to learn to control the anger
And this will verify your being educated and literate that you know how to display your anger and do it successfully
It can be possible that at times a person may not succeed and at times he may err but
he should reprimand himself and be concerned about correcting himself
It is seen that the authorities spell out their angers on their subjects like servants, children, wife and it also happens that
The cause of the anger is something not related to your domestic issues but connected to office,
but the frustration is emitted upon the family members
In such situation how should be the attitude of the family members and how should they deal with it?
There can be different ways to handle it.\NSometimes the household members understand the nature of the person
They realize that the person is victim of stress or undergoing some severe sickness. In other words he should be treated like a patient.
At such times, the people should go away from there or adopt silence
or even try to divert the attention for sometime
Once I had read an incident about a husband and wife, who had passed a long period with each other in love and affection
Someone asked them if they ever had any fights between them or got angry upon each other
They replied that it does happen but in this matter my wife has a major contribution that whenever I get angry she adopts silence
and after I cool down she fetches me cold water or cold drink
Saying, “You appear to be tired so drink this" and this causes an immediate transformation of anger into affection
It is just like if someone is sick, everybody in the house comes to know that he is sick
In that case how do we behave with him? We don't require to tell him to get up and wrap up his mattress
and ask him to do other work because we know that he is sick and he cannot do it
In the same way someone may be into the habit or a part of human weakness or he is under some pressure
and out of such frustration if he does something
Then we have to understand that the person is good except that at times he makes mistakes in this way so we should also forgive him
Yes, your words have lessons as you said that there is a discipline of respect with regards to elders and
You realize that this is a short phase so you yourself will be contend that his heart is not so bad
but at times his words are hurting so I feel at that time people around him should get scattered here and there
So when you are not present before him then he has no one to emit his anger upon
There is one more thing about anger as some people may say, “Ok I have heard so much about anger management
and now I understood that I should swallow my anger but I am not ready to forgive"
So we see that the anger comes back repeatedly so can you please give us some tips in how to forgive people
Every person should realize what are his own benefits of forgiving others and what the harms of it
When an allegation of put upon Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) Abu Bakr (Allah be pleased with him) got very angry
And the person who accused her was also one of the beneficiary of his charity,
so out of anger Abu Bakr (Allah be pleased with him) declared that henceforth he would not be giving charity to him
Allah revealed a verse reminding that those who are blessed with bounties and blessings
should behave generously with the needy and the muhajireen and they should not vow any such thing to stop being good to them
They should forgive and overlook the fault, do they not wish that Allah should forgive them as well?"
So they responded with “Yes Our Lord" we wish that you forgive us.
So Abu Bakr, not only forgave him but doubled his charity for him.
So our religion teaches us that if you wish to be forgiven
and shown mercy upon, then you should also forgive other
And if we don't forgive but carry those agonies within us, our hearts will be continuously affected by a pain
Our hearts will be a victim of burden and when the issue increases then we will be showing anger again
Therefore anger cannot be controlled until we learn how to forgive,
so we should forgive
We keep on burning in our hearts while they relax in their homes or sleeping comfortably
I would like to proceed further from this point,
you have shared some glad tidings as to what they will get on the day of judgement, whoever controls their anger, as mentioned in the Hadith
So whoever gets angry says that my head is spinning for the time being, my bulb is blown off
and there is a short circuit (in my brain nerves) and they do not understand anything except
When their anger is cooled off they realize that they should have done this and that
So some people have this question that how to remember all these advice right at the point
when we are in an angry mode? How to save our hereafter?
This is because they did not understand at that time. During anger, they want to settle things at that same moment
It is understandable that a person does undergo such conditions by mad anger or get in extreme fanaticism when he is unable to decide
but I feel that if a person firmly decides that I should not speak
No matter how angry I become, I should adopt silence
If a person clings to such firmness and then if he lapses then he should cling to firmness again
in this way he can do something for his own tarbiyah
Then a time will come when he will learn how to control his anger
But the fact remains that a person will get angry, but at that time
he should change his place or adopt silence but he has to do something
And as long as a person is alive he can do it because Allah has given him the choice to do it
And if human beings were not in a position to control anger then Allah would not have given this command
I think we are giving a message of helplessness to our own selves by saying that I cannot do it
Yes, he is displaying is weakness saying that he is very weak that he cannot control himself
Many a times it happens that we display an attitude of “take it or leave it" that's the way we are
So we need to change our attitudes and if our family members co-operate with us
then we should also put our efforts in it and
Especially as you were saying with regards to divorce, I feel that the men and boys too
should be trained that under no circumstances they should not utter this word because
The after effects of this is very devastating upon the family
If they utter that word once, then it cannot be taken back
There are many people who utter such words when angry then they regret it
and continue regretting for the rest of their life, feeling ashamed and dejected
And feel that it would have been better had they controlled themselves for a moment before uttering that word
There is one more issue which commonly seen in many mothers whose children reach teenage. These women have a lot of complaints.
distancing themselves from us, they remain away and even avoid sitting with their parents.
They even carry their food in their own rooms, they bang their doors on us and don't even talk properly with us
These women express a lot of displeasure about their relations being cut off with their children
Such mothers should think and try to find out as to from where did their children learn this from?
It could be that they themselves were demonstrating such behavior before them and today it is right before your eyes
Because if you train your child to display their displeasure with your own actions
so they will also follow the same pattern when they grow up
In spite they are human and such things do happen
and at that very moment when they are showing such behavior, good advice may not work
But besides that, there should be a relation building when you can show them their weakness
and they could also be shown the benefits and harms of their actions and be taught how to choose the right action
And if we continue showing them the correct way then surely they will listen and when time comes they will work on it
So we should not get despair and not haste
This is due to the fact that we wish that everything should be set in order by our instant order
Thus as spoilage takes time to happen, in the same way even corrections
take its own time to happen, therefore we should give enough time to improve
It is seen at times that wives keep on insisting that “we were on truth and we were right"
and “we are being wronged“ so if they keep on lamenting entire life that "we were right" will it work?
It can be possible that a person may always be right and the other may be absolutely wrong
but if you keep on proving yourself to be right every now and then, it cannot solve the problems
Actually we should have a problem solving attitude instead of defensive
or just keep nagging our keep on presenting our clarifications with excuses saying,
“this was not my objective" or “I did not mean this“
Such words have not benefit because the other person was observing your acts
and if your actions goes against his interest then your words have no weight before him
There are some men who attitude towards marriage is such that
no matter how much their wives try but they never seem to be happy with them
They keep on poking at every small things so much that the poor fellows do not even know what was the reason for the anger of their husbands
And sometimes such women ask that if at times our husbands are extremely angry in our presence
we remain quiet, even out of fear at times so in such situations how should we handle the issues and
Also later on how do we deal and resolve it?
They should realize that no person can remain in the state of anger all the time
Anger is like a flame, no matter how high it goes yet it has to return down and get extinguished and end
So whoever gets angry, his anger will cool down later and
he should be asked when he has cooled down, “How should you be dealt when you are angry?"
“How should we cool your anger?" or “Why did you get angry ?"
or "what triggers your anger? How can I be helpful to you during such situations"?
In other words, one should communicate during good times
and try to understand each other and if they try to understand each other genuinely then they can be helpful to each other
Because a believing male and a believing female as husband and wife are garments for each other
and they possess sympathy and well-wishes for each other
And they are not rivals to each other nor are they engaged in a battle of supremacy against each other
After all marriage is mercy, love and peace according to the purpose given by Allah,
but it is we who spoil it by our behavior
So I would suggest that couples should try to improve their communications during the time when things are cool
and try to develop understanding so that they may be helpful to each other during difficulties
You are right, but what happens to many women is that, they observe silence when their husbands are angry
but later they go to a corner and start weeping or undergo depression
But as you said, this is the time when communication with husband should be strengthened
What we understand from this is instead of focusing on the whole day's tug of war
Both of them should complement each others role.
And as you said earlier, mutual conversation is very important
We communicate with whole world but we exempt those with whom we have problems with
There is one more anger, which is also universal and that is the anger of mother upon their children
Right from childhood they keep on poking on small issues like, homework not done, studies not completed
or not eaten properly
Up to such an extent that if the poor child even moves a little bit then these moms get angry
Now, how should such mothers control their anger and what can be long term impact of such anger
If a mother is sensible in matters regarding her children upbringing
she would give a proof of her wisdom which will be immensely beneficial for the rest of the life
And if the mother displays immaturity then she will be ruining her children
Therefore a person should think in a very just manner
that if I am venting my anger on my children, which was due to my mother in-law or husband then it will not be an act of justice
And it will be extreme atrocious, our religion does not permit us to do this that we be harsh upon our children who are weak
Further the tips to control anger which are meant for elders will also be useful for the young ones too
And the mothers should try to understand the nature of children
that what do children do at such age and how to deal with them
Many a times we do not take parenting as a science that can be learnt
We learn cooking, managing house,
dressing, shopping, and many other things but when we become mothers
we don't think that how should we as mothers should be like and how to deal with kids during in situation
I understand that this knowledge is compulsory upon every mother
that if Allah has given her a child then how should he be brought up and make him a good human
This is the skill the mothers need to learn and the material to learn is available in plenty for anyone who wants to learn
There was one more thing I was thinking of asking you
How do we develop a temperament that helps us to soften our anger appropriately and be at the right place and right situation?
How do we work on over personality of ours?
For this one has to introspect and spot our own weakness
and highlight them and try to find out how do I be able to control over them
How to control different things, because until we are not able to see our own shortcomings nor analyze them nor understand them
Then we will not be able to solve them
Sometimes a person remains ignorant about his own self as to what am I, myself doing?
Thus one needs to understand ones own self
May Allah reward you with goodness
So viewers! What did we understand? The most important thing we learnt is to keep our remote control in our own possession
because what is anger?
Anger is to punish your own self for the mistakes of others and torture ones own self
and that brings such negative emotions in ourselves that we start sinking in it
In the state of anger you are not able to take any important decision nor can you do any constructive work
nor can you manage relations properly
Peace be upon you and The Mercy of Allaah and His blessings