O fasting person, do you hear? This one is insulting you terribly about yourself, your family, and your honor. Your tongue is itching with anger as your mind sends angry signals, translating your anger into the ugliest words to retaliate against him and inflict the harshest and most severe insults upon him.
O fasting person, do you see? This one is about to fight you, unjustly and wrongfully attacking you. Your soul receives angry signals from your mind, urging you strongly to fight back and to excessively punish him. Have you intended to insult this one and prepared to beat that one?
Wait, aren't you a Muslim? Aren't you fasting? Then, adorn yourself with the most beautiful and elegant of manners and the most vivid and flourishing images of patience. Your beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) speaks to you, advises you: “Fasting is a protection, [i.e. from acts of disobedience in this world and from hell in the next. Pt. vi.] and when the day of the fast of any of you comes he must not use vile language or raise his voice, and if anyone reviles him or tries to fight with him he should tell him he is fasting.” (1)
Do you hasten to know the meaning of “protection?” Do not rush, as the Prophet (peace be upon him) explains its meaning, emphasizing his advice in another hadith: “Fasting is a shield against the Fire just like the shield of anyone of you against fighting.” (2) The Prophet (peace be upon him) means that fasting is a protection and safeguard, like a shield that protects a warrior from being killed in battle. The purpose is to protect from harmful desires. Isn't obscene language, which means foul speech, and loud arguments among the harmful desires of the soul? Your beloved advises you in these situations to say with your tongue, “I am fasting,” to restrain your opponent or to feel this meaning in your sensitive heart and refrain from your opponent. (3)
Take the advice of your beloved. He (peace be upon him) knows that anger is a fire kindled in the hearts, causing the blood to boil and seethe. Whoever is patient and controls it succeeds in extinguishing it, and whoever releases it is the first to be burned by it. Anger is destructive to its owner and reveals his flaws. Feel the impact of his noble teachings as they erase the flaws of your soul, teachings that apply to everyone, even those who neglect them or defy them, as they resonate over our world: Do not make your words and actions bridges to cross over to Hell.
And you, as one of the followers and lovers of his noble teachings, do you want to neglect them or defy them? Do you reject your worthiness and love for the advice of your beloved Prophet (peace be upon him)?
No, you should feel your belonging to them as they flow into your soul. Leaving the path of those who adhere to them does not harm anyone but yourself, while adhering to the path and conduct of this group is a pure blessing upon you from Allah and then from your beloved Prophet (peace be upon him). Because he is your beloved, he sets for you a moral compass that fills your mind and heart with the meanings of the Hereafter, as well as your interactions. Strive to make his noble advice permeate your interactions, and define them. There is no escape from the loss of minds that do not understand them, the corruption of hearts that do not feel them, and the blindness of eyes that do not see them.
Wait, his noble advice still applies to you. It is as if it increases you, so listen: The important decision is made at times equally important. The most capable people of doing the right thing are those who do not get angry. So do not think in anger and lose, for perhaps a single word or a single move may cause you to lose many things you wish and hope for from Allah. Through patience or forced patience, through forbearance or forced forbearance, you find your Muslim self that draws its strength from his noble invitation that lives inside you, which no one else owns but you as a Muslim, targeting your soul and teaching you how to breathe without anger and deal with your matters fairly. And even if you dealt with your matters in a way that caused you some injustice or made you breathe with some anger, it doesn't matter. You are not seeking the easy thing. Close your eyes and see the end of the road; you are building a Paradise as wide as the heavens and the earth. The truth is like the sun, it never disappears, and it is never established except with good morals.
Follow the advice of your beloved and make it visible in all the events of your days, not only in Ramadan. Borrowing from the noble ayah: “And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily, and when the ignorant address them harshly, they say [words of] peace.” (Al-Furqan: 63); meaning they walk with forbearance, tranquility, and dignity, neither arrogant nor haughty, and when the ignorant address them with harsh words, they respond with good words and correct speech. (4)
Also, learning from his advice (peace be upon him) to the companion who said to him: “O Messenger of Allah, advise me.” He (peace be upon him) said: “Do not get angry.” The man repeated that several times and he replied, “Do not get angry.” (5) It is said in the explanation of the hadith in “Fath al-Bari”: Anger is a natural instinct placed by Allah in human nature, which is a change that occurs when the blood of the heart boils to achieve satisfaction in the chest. People differ in its origin and effect, hence some anger is praiseworthy, and some is blameworthy. Those whose anger is for the truth and does not lead them to what corrupts their religion and worldly affairs have praiseworthy anger. Those who are angry for falsehood or cannot control their anger when they are angry, leading them to exceed the limit and corrupt their religion and worldly affairs, have blameworthy anger.
Allah always reveals the veils to His beloved, so the noble prophetic medicine in this context controls, out of compassion for you, the diseases caused by excessive anger. These include heart diseases due to the boiling of blood in the heart, leading to high blood pressure, which in turn leads to headaches, sleep disturbances, many respiratory problems, and eventually, this mix of illnesses may lead to a stroke. It also affects the skin, increasing and hastening the appearance of premature wrinkles.
Modern medicine agrees with the advice of the beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) that the best ways to maintain your health are to control your anger. One strong way to achieve this is to accept feelings of anger as an integral part of your life's events. You will only succeed in this matter through patience and forced patience as your beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) advised you.
There are other things that help you succeed in this matter. By contemplating them, you will find they are like the advice of the beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) in other instances. If we had more time and space, we would provide noble evidence for each one of them, such as: moving away from the place where the anger incident occurred, washing your face, hands, and head with cold water (wudu’), engaging in some physical activities like running and light exercises, knowing the main cause of anger, which helps facilitate strategies to deal with it, relaxation and meditation, talking to someone you love and can express your negative feelings to, and is there anyone dearer to you than Allah the Almighty? Stand in prayer before Him, and complain to Him in your sujood about your worries and sadness.
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(1) Authentic hadith, reported by Al-Bukhari (1904) and Muslim (1151).
(2) Authentic hadith, authenticated by Al-Albani in Sahih Ibn Majah (1336), and Al-Suyuti in Al-Jami' Al-Saghir (5175).
(3) It is said in the explanation of the hadith in “Fath al-Bari”: The prohibition applies even more during fasting, otherwise, even the non-fasting person is prohibited from that.
(4) From Al-Tabari's tafsir of the ayah.
(5) Authentic hadith, reported by Al-Bukhari (6116).
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