Mustafa Khattab – Control Your Anger

Pay attention in the way of Tarah. So

today we'll talk about anger.

Anger.

I know some of us have anger issues,

you know. I hear a story as people

come to me for counseling,

someone steps on your foot,

World War 3. I'm

gonna kill you and your family, and

Come on, man. So anger.

What is the problem with anger?

Anger will get you in trouble.

Sometimes I go to jail and

visit people,

some of them are young,

they did something foolish

when they were young.

17, 18, 19.

They shot someone, they got into a fight,

they spent their entire lives in jail. Or

at least 25 or

years of their lives in jail because of

one angry moment

and they decided to,

to act violently

and they ruined their lives.

Whereas if they control their anger they would

have been in a bitter place.

There's a hadith, an authentic hadith,

someone was brought to the Prophet salallahu alayhi

wa sallam, he killed another sahabi, a sahabi

killed another sahabi.

So what happened? The Prophet

told him, what happened?

They were shepherds,

ra'a.

They had their own animals and stuff, so

they were taking care of the animals,

and they were collecting food for the animals.

They got into a hated argument.

One thing led to another, so he hit

him with the ax and he killed him.

So he said, the reason I killed him

is because he insulted my mother. He said

something about my mother so I killed him.

So the the Prophet

said, Why didn't you

say,

or leave or go somewhere else? You killed

him?

You know, because one thing led to another?

When you read in the Quran you see

some people getting in trouble because of anger.

The best example,

we love Yunus alaihis salam, we all say

peace be upon him, we love him and

respect him, but in Surah Yunus, sorry in

Surah and Bia because he was angry his

people were not responsive

and Allah told them they are getting

punished.

So what did he do?

Because, you know, he has been giving dua

for a long time,

very few people believed in him or maybe

no one believed in him, so he was

he was very angry, and he left without

the permission of Allah.

Because he was very angry, very mad because

people were not responsive,

and the punishment was coming anyway, so he

left without the permission of Allah

So what happened to him?

Allah

put him in the belly of the whale.

Doesn't mean that Allah did not have power

over him.

Means

He made it very tight for him. He

restrained him. He put him in the belly

of the whale.

Why? Because he was angry.

Right? But again, the prophet said,

don't say, the prophet

said, don't say I'm better than Yunus.

Respect him as much as you respect me.

So this is why when you say Yunus

alayhi salaam, you say, alayhi salaam.

Also,

I'll give you another good example.

Those of you who love soccer, raise your

hand.

Almost all boys and half of the girls.

Okay. That's good.

So what happened back in 2,008?

No. No. No. The final

World Cup final.

I got this set on stage 1.

2008.

Okay. You remember the final game? Okay. You

got my points anyway.

Okay. Listen guys. Don't

get me angry. Okay?

Okay.

I believe it was 2,008. It could be

2,006, but I think it's 2,008, the final

World Cup game between Italy and France.

France was that close to winning the cup

as they did in 1998.

But they lost because of one thing.

Anger. Because of anger.

A guy from the Italian team said something

about Zainiden Zidane's mother. Zainiden Zidane got very

angry and he, you know,

he headbutted him.

And of course the morale of the French

team went down and they lost

because of one angry moment.

So this could happen to you. So what

do you need to do basically

when you feel angry?

Say,

And this is the advice of the Prophet

Go make wudu.

The Prophet

said, If you are angry and you are

standing up, sit down.

If you feel that one thing will lead

to another and you will do something that

you will regret for the rest of your

life, just leave leave the place, go somewhere

else.

Right? If you are in one room in

the house, go to another room. Right? If

someone is bothering you so much and you

feel like you will do something to them,

you'll break their neck, give them a black

eye, do something, just leave.

If you can't stand the heat,

leave the kitchen. This is what they say

in English. Right? Go somewhere else.

My advice also,

sometimes you need to be angry.

This is the fact, sometimes you have to

be angry. Say for example, I am going

home and there is this guy and he

or she,

they are torturing a cat.

There is a video on YouTube. This guy

is cutting off the ears of a cat

and they are taking video of

him. You need to be angry. Right?

If say for example,

my kids are like 18 or 25 and

they don't pray on time. Yes. I need

to get angry. But how should I channel

my anger into a positive way?

Yes. I should be angry but how do

I react? How do I respond? In a

positive way.

Right? By teaching them about salah, by, you

know, asking them to pray on time, or

telling the guy who was torturing a cat,

this is not nice.

A bad thing done to an animal is

as bad as something terrible, you know, being

done to a human being. They have feelings,

they have ruach, they have a soul, you

shouldn't do this. Try to give them try

to give them naseehah. Try to channel your

anger in a positive way.

I'll conclude with this story, it's a personal

story that happened with me,

about 4 years ago,

close to 4 years ago.

August 2013,

I was in Toronto,

and I was visiting the Imam there for

1 month so one day I was going

to,

my house

I didn't have a car back then because

it was just 1 month and it is

very hard to find parking in

you know around the place where I was

working

Dundas, downtown.

So I was coming back from the Masjid

after Salatul Jumaa and I was dressed up

like Masha Allah with a turban and something

like this. I think it was white or

and the sword, you know, like very

like a prince, you know, from the old

days, you know 1000 years ago. But anyway

the cab driver that day was not Muslim.

So he knew that I was Muslim. Most

of the time my cab drivers during that

time were Muslim. He called the company

is you know a Muslim comes.

But that day the cab driver was not

Muslim. So he said,

Muslims are good people but Islam is evil.

Islam sucks. These were his words.

I could have, you know, gotten into a

heated argument with him.

You know, Muhammad Ali

You know I'm gonna you know fight you

and your entire family. Let's go. You know.

No. I you know I channeled this into

a positive thing

and as a result of this

I translated the whole Quran because he said

that the Quran you know called him an

animal and I said no it doesn't say

this in the ayah and I realized

that his translation said so. So instead of

fighting him and breaking his jaw or you

know, get to a into a fight,

I realized there was a problem and I

tried to solve it by doing a translation

of the Quran. Alhamdulillah,

the clear Quran is the number one Amazon

Canada bestseller.

You know? So we make sure that it

is available for Dawah to send them a

clear Quran to all public libraries.

Next step would be to send the clear

Quran to all hotel rooms, to all airports,

to make them available to the public, they

are already in the in the jail system,

inmates receive the clear Quran.

Why? Because I use this moment, this angry

moment to do something positive. You can do

the same thing. So instead of getting into

a heated argument or a fight with someone,

try to see what is the most practical

and positive way to channel your anger. Maybe

we'll continue tomorrow Insha Allah. We ask Allah

Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to give you the best

in this life and the best in the

life to come. Questions tomorrow, Insha'Allah.

Questions tomorrow.