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Asalamualaykum,

Day 37

Class: Husne Akhlaq

In Husne Akhlaq, we learn about things to beautify our character. Currently, we’re on the chapter about patience.

One thing that the teacher mentioned is that Sabr is to hold yourself back from a negative reaction. Exploding is not going to do anything. It’s negative. It’s not sabr. And, it’s not necessarily going to stop the problem.

But, what do we do?

Let’s look at an example. Say you give a glass of juice to a child and you tell him to be careful and make sure that the juice does not spill. The child reassures you that he is responsible enough to keep an eye on his juice. Suddenly, the child accidently knocks over his juice while he was reaching across the table. What would you do?

From what I’ve heard , most people would react very quickly. They would scold the child, possibly causing him to cry. But is this sabr? Is this what Allah tells us to do? Will this solve the problem of the spilled juice?

Of course not! No one is going to come clean the juice up for you. The juice will not go back into the cup. You can’t leave it there. Yelling at the child will only cause him to cry. What good is a negative reaction?

Also, you can’t react so negatively, calm down, and then claim that you are remaining patient. That’s not patience.

On the other hand…if you had grabbed some paper towels, cleaned up the mess, smiled at the child and warned him to try not to make the mistake again, wouldn’t there be a huge difference in the outcome?

This is what Islam teaches us. It teaches us to hold back our negative reactions and use our energies to do something positive. Why should we make a situation worse than it is? Why do we make things difficult on ourselves and others? If something doesn’t go the way you had planned, don’t make a huge deal. Don’t start taking your anger out on others (especially if they didn’t do anything to cause you anger). Work towards something positive. Resolve the problem. Don’t make it worse!

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