Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa'l-Ḥikam 16: ‹Do Not Become Angry›, a Counsel That Forms a Way of Life

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 23 August 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Dr. Ahmed began his khatira with a supplication in which he asked Allah to grant us right guidance in our affairs, to bless us in what He has provided us, to protect us from the punishment of the Fire and turn away from us the causes of punishment through mercy, bounty and pleasure from Him, and to write for us of the good what He knows better than we do to set right our condition and our wealth. Then he said that he would begin with a brief word in English, then speak in Arabic as much as was made easy.

Anger Is a Departure from Awareness

In his brief English word he mentioned that anger is a state that takes a person out of his awareness, and that this departure is what reveals to us where a person stands at the moment he acts. He pointed out that most of the calamities we see are acts that issue in this state: a man divorces his wife, another kills, a third strikes someone, a fourth shouts, and the rest of these actions.

The Ḥadīth: "Counsel Me"

Then he moved to Arabic and cited the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that a man said to the Prophet ﷺ: Counsel me (أوصني). And he ﷺ said: «لا تغضب» (Do not become angry).^[1] The man repeated his request several times, and each time the Prophet ﷺ said: «لا تغضب» (Do not become angry).

He paused at the word "أوصني" and explained that in the Arabs' language, a waṣiyyah (a bequest-counsel) differs relatively from naṣīḥah (advice); advice may be applied to useful words for a temporary benefit or the like, whereas a waṣiyyah, as you know, indicates a way of life. When a person bequeaths to his children after him, or to someone among people, a written bequest, he is making for them a way of life. ﴿وَوَصَّىٰ بِهَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ بَنِيهِ وَيَعْقُوبُ﴾ (And Abraham instructed his sons to do the same, and so did Jacob),^[2] he was not giving them advice useful for a set time, but was making for them a way of life. So too the questioner who came to the Prophet ﷺ did not say "advise me" but said "counsel me," and so the Prophet's ﷺ counsel was that he not become angry.

Three Narrations: Counsel Me, Teach Me, Direct Me

And he mentioned another narration which he attributed to al-Tirmidhī, whose meaning is that a man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: O Messenger of Allah, teach me something, and do not give me too much, that I may retain it. He drew attention to the fact that the first time the man said "counsel me," and in this one he said "teach me something," and then added: "and do not give me too much"; that is, give me only what defines a pattern of life for me, and tell me what to do.

And he gave an example of this from our students in universities: before a student joins a course or a major he goes to the academic advisor at the university and says to him: These are my grades and these are my courses, and I have done such and such, and I have this experience, and I want such and such, so where do I go? And the advisor says to him: You can go along this line, so you study such and such, and do not take that other path. So the Companion (may Allah be pleased with them) is saying to the Prophet ﷺ the same thing in meaning: I want to choose a way to walk its path without deviating from it to the right or to the left, and I want this one path alone. So the Prophet ﷺ said: «لا تغضب» (Do not become angry), and he repeated that several times.

And in another ḥadīth the man said: I said, O Messenger of Allah, direct me to a deed that will admit me to Paradise, and do not give me too much. So the narrations so far are three: "counsel me," "teach me," and "direct me to a deed that will admit me to Paradise."

Then he said: If someone came to you wanting to go to a particular place, and said to you: Direct me to the road, and you directed him and told him the road is from here, would it be permissible for him, by reason, to go back and walk another road or walk in the opposite direction, when you are trusted by him and your direction counts with him? No; he will go by this road and that will be the end of it. So the Prophet ﷺ here repeats the same advice, and says to his companion: Do not become angry.

Who Was the Questioner? A Study in the Psychology of Abū al-Dardāʾ

Then he said: I have a question that was put to me, which is that the questioner in this ḥadīth is Abū al-Dardāʾ in some narrations. So I began to research a simple matter: What was the psychology of Abū al-Dardāʾ (may Allah be pleased with him), and what were his psychological traits? And I have a difficulty, that the narrations of each Companion (may Allah be pleased with them) were not random.

And he brought this closer with an example: If you sat with me today and we talked about topics, when you leave, what will you report from me of what I said? And will all people report the same information in the same words, or will each of them choose one aspect? One has a question stuck in his head, "direct me to a deed that will admit me to Paradise," and his concern is to be in Paradise. Another misses someone to counsel him, misses people who fill his life, and wants to have a companion and a friend, so he fills his chest with this companionship and says "counsel me." So one goes out to relate "counsel me," another to relate "teach me," another to relate "direct me to Paradise."

So why was the question from Abū al-Dardāʾ? We have some indications of that. If you gather the narrations of Abū al-Dardāʾ (may Allah be pleased with him), and they are many, and begin to make from them a particular case study of the common denominators among them, as a researcher in the laboratory does when he gathers ten points and then asks what the common denominators among them are, you find among his most important traits:

First: his self-monitoring. He was always monitoring himself and warning it against deviation, and there are various narrations on this that would take long to mention.

Second: intense fear of being questioned before the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him. He was always reminding himself and people of standing before the Lord of Might, glory be to Him.

Third: a deep contemplative tendency toward things. He was a man of an analytical mind, who did not take any word that came to him and move on. And he explained that with an example: Someone may come to you and say: What is the most hoped-for of a Muslim's deeds in his life? And you say to him: Prayer, so he takes the word from you and sets off: Allāhu akbar, he prays four, he prays six, he prays eight, he prays a hundred. And there is another person who begins to reflect: Why prayer? What are its secrets? What results from it? How does it affect the psychology of a person, his mind, his heart and his inner feeling? So he turns prayer from being a mere act into a method of thinking, drawing from it the places of strength in himself and setting off with it in his life. So what is the difference between the two? One took the outward form of the act, and the second reflected on the effect of this act at the level of the individual and at the level of society and began to move on that basis. And Abū al-Dardāʾ (may Allah be pleased with him) had this kind of self-reflection in everything before him.

Fourth: freedom from the yoke of attachment to people. And this is a characteristic I noticed in some narrations of Abū al-Dardāʾ, and God willing our Lord will write for us and we will do a special study on Abū al-Dardāʾ. And the meaning of that: that you see a person to whom, if you say, what do you think if we do such and such? he says: And what will people say? If you say: let's move, he says: They might fault us. These people give more regard to people than to themselves, and sometimes more than to the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him; they give more regard to what people say and their view than to the interests that accrue to them, until a person loses his entire interest, and may bring himself to ruin for fear that people will say something of the sort about him.

So when we come to Abū al-Dardāʾ and see these traits in him, he is well worthy and fit to ask such a question, even if it was repeated from him (may Allah be pleased with him).

Awareness and Comprehension

And we have in another ḥadīth that a man said: O Messenger of Allah, tell me something, and give me little, that I may comprehend it (aʿqiluhu). And in the first narration he said: that I may retain it (aʿiyahu). So what is the difference between awareness (waʿy) and comprehension (taʿaqqul)? Is there a difference between the two words? Without doubt, awareness is taking in a comprehensive matter as a whole. (And he said jokingly to those present: The talk is somewhat hard today, and I see some people concentrating with me, send blessings upon the Guide, the Bearer of glad tidings ﷺ.)

Then he asked: The word "ʿaql" (intellect), where did it come from? May Allah reward you, but where did this name come from? What is the significance of the word ʿaql? The ʿiqāl: what is its meaning? The tether, you tie something and it does not move. So the naming of the intellect came from the fact that it ties down (yaʿqil) what comes to it of knowledge or information or anything. So when knowledge or information enters the intellect, it ties it down inside, and it does not come out except in a state of being carried out or rejected. And he gave an example of that: Someone came and said to you: Come, let's stay up late at such and such a place and do such and such, and it will be a rowdy night, so what does the intellect do? It takes this information and puts it inside and then works on it and ties it: Is this lawful or forbidden? Is it right or wrong? Then on that basis it issues its report and says: No, this does not suit me, I will go to my mosque and spend my night here, for example. So the intellect that the Companion asked about is in the sense of comprehension, so he said: "that I may comprehend it." So once he says "that I may retain it": I need a method that I study and distill in myself, and another time: I need a piece of information that I hold fast to and move within its framework.

Anger Gathers All Evil

And in a narration of a man from the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ he said: I said, O Messenger of Allah, counsel me. He said: «لا تغضب» (Do not become angry). The man said: So I reflected when the Prophet ﷺ said what he said, and lo, anger gathers all evil. And we have a narration which Imam Aḥmad related from the ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr that he asked the Prophet ﷺ: What will keep me far from the wrath of Allah? And the Prophet ﷺ said: «لا تغضب» (Do not become angry). So anger brings one near to the wrath of Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted. Glory be to the Most High, the All-Powerful.

So these are five narrations: one says a path to Paradise, the second says keeping far from the wrath of Allah, the third a counsel, the fourth "that I may retain it," and the fifth "that I may comprehend it." And the multiplicity of narrations in this way draws for you a general picture of what follows from anger.

So what is anger? Anger is a departure from the basis of the pattern of thinking. You think in this way and walk by it, and when you become angry you step out of this framework, so the tether comes loose, and when the tether comes loose, actions come out unperceived, unaware of the consequences, and you do not understand what you are saying. So one of them comes weeping and says: I divorced her. I say: And what did you do? He says: She upset me and I lost my senses. I say to him: Praise be to Allah, our Lord covered us, and what we said was only a word of divorce, for example. But there is another who will draw a knife, or draw a pistol and fire bullets, and that bullet that went out or the stab that was dealt or the word in states of anger has no return.

"Good Character" Is Not to Become Angry

Then he mentioned another incident, and said: Imagine, glory be to Allah the All-Powerful, one comes to him and says: O Messenger of Allah, which deed is best? And the Prophet ﷺ says: «حسن الخلق» (Good character). Then a second comes and asks: O Messenger of Allah, which deed is best? He says: «حسن الخلق» (Good character). Then a third comes to him and says: O Messenger of Allah, which deed is best? Then he stopped to ask: Why does the Companion repeat the same question? What is the reason? Imagine that he wants a second answer, why? Perhaps he saw that this is an easy matter, consistent with the nature of ordinary people, and that he wants something above the level of ordinary people. For people like us, it is natural for them to be of good character. It is as if you say to me in all simplicity: How does my business succeed? And I say to you: With good merchandise. For it is natural that I have good merchandise, so what new thing have you come with? And then the Prophet ﷺ says to him: «حسن الخلق هو ألا تغضب إن استطعتَ» (Good character is that you not become angry, if you are able).^[5] As if the Prophet ﷺ knew that the man had only received a general answer and wanted it specified, or that he wanted to rise from the level of the common denominator between him and the rest of people to a somewhat higher level, so the Prophet ﷺ specified the answer for him and said: Good character is not to become angry.

And we have a saying in this regard: «وَعَينُ الرِّضا عَن كُلِّ عَيبٍ كَليلَةٌ، وَلَكِنَّ عَينَ السُخطِ تُبدي المَساوِيا» (The eye of contentment is dull to every fault, but the eye of displeasure reveals the vices). And its meaning: that if you deal with a person while you are pleased with him you do not see his faults, so you say every sweet word to him and praise him in any situation he does while you are with him, but if a quarrel occurs between you, you begin to search for faults and bring them out. So when a person leaves the place of ordinary natural comprehension, he begins to search for what destroys. So the Prophet ﷺ says: good character, and you will be in the best state there can be, perfectly fine, as long as you are disciplined in mind, logic and morals.

﴿وَإِذَا مَا غَضِبُوا هُمْ يَغْفِرُونَ﴾

Then he said: I do not want to say too much to you, but imagine the words of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him: ﴿وَإِذَا مَا غَضِبُوا هُمْ يَغْفِرُونَ﴾ (and when they are angry, they forgive).^[3] And he asked: What is the relation between the two matters? Does this forgiveness issue from a person of intellect or one without? So if you are the one who forgives, and you are the one who will graciously grant this pardon, are you the one with the right or the debtor? One of those present said: A waiving of the right. He said: Good, excellent.

So the one who becomes angry and then forgiveness issues from him is either a party in a mutual case. And he gave an example of that: This is my eyeglasses, and you say no, these are my eyeglasses, and I know my account and I say to you no, they are mine. So we go to the trademark, then we dispute over this matter, and you say to me: Well, wait, calm down a little, we will go to the prescription, for it settles the matter. So how do I forgive when I am the debtor, I am the one alleged to have erred? How does forgiveness issue from me? Look at any discussion or dispute or matter that takes place between two parties: it must leave some harm, even if small, however it may be. So for a person to take that out of his chest is a nobility that is not achieved by many people.

And imagine the dear beloved saying to his friend: I am sorry. Then we talk about the matter: why not, and why such and such? Then one of them says: What kind of manners are these? And what is this sheikh who is telling the story? So if he goes out and speaks of this, he is overstepping in recounting what happened. If he recounts what happened and goes out to people and they hear him, does everyone who hears understand from him exactly what happened? Or do understandings begin to differ? But if forgiveness occurs and the matter ends where it is and we leave with pure souls, we do not even remember those incidents: ﴿وَإِذَا مَا غَضِبُوا هُمْ يَغْفِرُونَ﴾ (and when they are angry, they forgive).

Or the angry one may be the one with the right, but the dispute that took place before him came from someone of strong contentiousness and argument, so he forgives. And the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, says: ﴿وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ﴾ (and those who restrain anger),^[4] those before whom foolish acts issue from people, yet they pass over that. So not every angry person is a debtor, and this is the sum of the matter: not every angry person is a debtor, and not every angry person is a person of bad character.

Did the Prophet ﷺ Become Angry?

And he asked: Did the Prophet ﷺ become angry or not? The narration says, or the description says: he would not become angry for himself, but would become angry when the sacred limits of Allah, Blessed and Exalted, were violated. So he ﷺ did become angry, but it was an anger that did not take its possessor out of the framework of awareness, and did not let matters slip from the bounds of reason. And with this we reconcile the narrations.

The Remedy for Anger: Remembrance, Seeking Refuge and Ablution

Then he presented the kinds of remedy described by the Prophet ﷺ. Anger is an ember from Satan that moves inside a person. And the person of remembrance (dhikr) is one who closes these openings, and Satan is always going around looking for a door to enter by, so if remembrance is absent or stops for a while, the radar goes off saying to Satan: Hurry, come, there's an opportunity, enter. And Satan, glory be to the All-Creating, the All-Knowing, does his work with skill. And he brought this closer with an example: Imagine a doctor skilled in his profession, who has worked in this field for fifty years, a man of experience, and you take him to such and such a place in some case, and he finds what he finds, and the doctor does not say a word; because he is a man of precise experience and mastery. So if this doctor has fifty years working in this matter, then how many years has Satan been working at this job of his? For a very long time, so he knows exactly what to do, and knows how to deal with each one of us so as to bring him to his ruin, and refuge is with Allah.

Hence the remedy came by seeking help from the Great, the Self-Sustaining: I seek forgiveness of Allah the Great, I seek refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed. For our master the Prophet ﷺ, when anger arose in front of him between two parties, made clear that he knew a word which, if the angry one said it, what he was in would leave him, and it is: I seek refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed.^[6] But who is that person of intellect who seeks refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed so as to restore to himself the firmness of his mind and again take hold of himself?

And with seeking refuge we have ablution. It is related from the Prophet ﷺ that anger is an ember from Satan, and that fire is put out only by water.^[7] So when water touches the skin, the anger inside settles. A natural remedy of the utmost simplicity.

A Draught of Rage Fills the Interior with Faith

Then he concluded with the ḥadīth of the draught of rage, which, according to what he related, is: «ما من جرعةٍ أحبُّ إلى الله من جرعة غيظٍ يكظمها عبد، ما كظمها عبدٌ لله إلا ملأ جوفه إيمانًا» (There is no draught more beloved to Allah than a draught of rage that a servant swallows; no servant swallows it for Allah except that He fills his interior with faith).^[8] So there is no person who swallows a draught of anger within himself except that Allah, Blessed and Exalted, fills his heart with faith.

And he mentioned an incident that took place between ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and his son, related by Shaykh Ibn Rajab: that ʿUmar became angry, and when he became angry his son said to him: Does one like you, with this faith of yours, get angry? He said to him: Do you not become angry? And the son's name was ʿAbd al-Malik. He said to him: Then why did Allah expand my chest, if not so that anger would bounce around inside it until it settles?

And he brought this meaning closer with a very simple example: Imagine you are at the club where they hit the ball with the racket; you hit it with a strong stroke and it goes to the wall, then rebounds, and strikes the wall once more. But does it continue in this state? It goes once, twice, three and a half times, four and a quarter, and before it reaches the fifth it has come to rest, and keeps bouncing on the ground a little and then settles. So it is as if he is depicting for us the movement of anger: it moves within the frame of the chest, and the chests of the believers are by default full of faith, so when anger moves within faith it settles after a while.

And he concluded by asking Allah, glory be to Him, to make us and you pleased with His pleasure, and to make us firm with the word…

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth «أوصني. قال: لا تغضب» (“Counsel me. He said: Do not become angry”) was narrated by al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him). The remaining narrations the speaker mentioned (attributing one to al-Tirmidhī, and another to Aḥmad from the ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr) were relayed by meaning and as they appeared in his speech, without verifying their wording and chains of transmission. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: al-Baqarah: 132. The speaker limited himself to the first part of the verse. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: al-Shūrā: 37. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Āl ʿImrān: 134. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The wording "Good character is that you not become angry, if you are able" has not been verified, nor has the story of the repeated question and the specifying of the answer; both were relayed as they appeared in the speaker's words. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The origin of the ḥadīth is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the ḥadīth of Sulaymān ibn Ṣurad (may Allah be pleased with him), and its wording is: «إني لأعلم كلمةً لو قالها لذهب عنه ما يجد، لو قال: أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم» (“I know a word which, if he said it, what he feels would leave him, if he said: I seek refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed”). The speaker relayed it by meaning, so it is rendered here without quotation marks. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: The meaning of this appears in Sunan Abī Dāwūd with a chain of transmission that has some criticism, and its wording is: «فإذا غضب أحدكم فليتوضأ» (“So when one of you becomes angry, let him perform ablution”); the speaker relayed it by meaning without attribution. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: Its meaning appears in Aḥmad and Ibn Mājah from the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with both of them); the wording set down is what the speaker uttered, without attribution.