A reflection on.... Anger

I often used to wonder what anger is, why do people get angry? And more important what is the purpose if getting angry? Ever since i started the studies of my beloved religion - Islam - there was this one Hadith i kept on stumbling upon again and again.

Narated By Abu Huraira : A man said to the Prophet , “Advise me! “The Prophet said, “Do not become angry and furious.” The man asked (the same) again and again, and the Prophet said in each case, “Do not become angry and furious.” - Sahih Bukhari 

WHY did the Prophet (pbuh) repeated this words three times? What is it about anger that makes it.... maybe "dangerous" ? The Prophet (pbuh) could have given the man three different advises, but he did not. Instead he repeated " Do not become angry and furious".
Anger is something we show as a response when something unpleasant or negatively unexpected happens to us. BUT it is not that we cannot control this response, as the Prophet (pbuh) defines a strong person:

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The strong-man is not one who wrestles well but the strong man is one who controls himself when he is in a fit of rage. - Sahih Muslim

So why do people express anger? Even often in a way, that the whole neighbourhood will be listening to the shouting. Anger happens when we let our emotions take over. Remember a situation when you got angry at someone! What happened? How did you handle the situation? Or maybe you did not handle the situation at all and instead just "got angry" to get over with it.
Expressing anger is actually a way to avoid dealing with either a person or a situation. Because when someone gets angry they shout and maybe trash some glassware and then finally smash the door and hide in a room, case closed - and most times never talked about again... sounds weird but that is actually what happens most of the times when people get angry. It's total avoidance. There is firstly nothing intelligent about it and secondly and more importantly the situation is not dealt with, If we rather stay calm and think about how to tackle our problem, we could maybe even find a solution instead of scaring other people with our behaviour.

Another interesting aspect here is: Whom do we get angry with? Would we get angry with our boss? Our teacher? Shout at our parents? NO! We get angry with people who are WEAKER or YOUNGER than us! Now why would we do that? To show how "powerful" we are and that it US to decide what happens and what not? To tell everybody that it is our law that rules?
Let's think here.. is that even according to the Islamic teachings? Did the Prophet (pbuh) teach us to mistreat the weaker ones and to shout as loud as we can to terrify them?
You know the answer... No.

So why was it the prophetic advise to not get angry.... Let's see a few points of what anger does to us:

1) Anger effects our whole body, out heart rate increases and our blood pressure goes higher which is not good for our health
2) In anger people say things they do not mean. They abuse each other, say nasty stuff - words that they can never take back and which always cause a certain kind of distance between them.
3) Innocent bystanders are getting involved. People who are absolutely not related to the fight get involved because angry people do not speak softly, but the SHOUT. Making everything they say very audible to other people in their surrounding.

So what can we do when we get angry?

Narated By Atiyyah as-Sa’di : AbuWa’il al-Qass said: We entered upon Urwah ibn Muhammad ibn as-Sa’di. A man spoke to him and made him angry. So he stood and performed ablution; he then returned and performed ablution, and said: My father told me on the authority of my grandfather Atiyyah who reported the Apostle of Allah (pbuh) as saying: Anger comes from the devil, the devil was created of fire, and fire is extinguished only with water; so when one of you becomes angry, he should perform ablution. -Abu Dawud

Narated By Sulaiman bin Surd : While I was sitting in the company of the Prophet, two men abused each other and the face of one of them became red with anger, and his jugular veins swelled (i.e. he became furious). On that the Prophet said, “I know a word, the saying of which will cause him to relax, if he does say it. If he says: ‘I seek Refuge with Allah from Satan.’ then all is anger will go away.” Some body said to him, “The Prophet has said, ‘Seek refuge with Allah from Satan.”‘ The angry man said, “Am I mad?” - Sahih Bukhari

SO here are two Hadiths which give us an advise on how to behave when we get angry. Do ablution and say " I seek refuge with Allah from Satan".

Now tell me, what is your valid proof for justifying your anger???

Do not let Shaytan take over, and stay calm when in a difficult situtation. Work on your Iman and know that it is Allah who has control over everything and that anger is not an answer to a problem but rather makes it worse. 

Jazak Allah Khairan and Thank you for taking the time to read this article.

Salma