An auntie gee I know has a saying:
“If you’re going to be that mad, Allah doesn’t need your fast.”
There’s some intrinsic wisdom to this.
One of the downsides to fasting – especially when you’re eating the wrong foods at night – is that we can have a tendency to feel justified in our anger.
In fact, I remember when I lived in Egypt to study Arabic, a friend of mine joked: “Ah, Ramadan – the month where everyone becomes extremely grumpy in an attempt to connect with God.”
Is it a given that we’ll become hungry and angry during fasting days? And is there anything we can do about it?
Last night during a “Marriage Made Easy” group coaching session, a student shared a gem she had recently read by al-Ghazali:
“Anger is a punishment you give yourself, because of the actions of others”
According to the Islamic spiritual tradition, there are two cures for anger. The first must be administered before the onset of anger. The second is done when anger occurs.
Anger Cure #1:
The first cure for anger is to read the stories of all the prophets, peace & blessings upon them, noticing that every single one of them had the quality of forbearance.
In other words, by delving into the deep wisdom of the stories of the Quran, you may have an enlightening insight that causes spontaneous and permanent change. This happens every day to people all over the world. And today, it could happen to you.
Anyone who’s been through my courses knows that it’s this kind of insight that all of my coaching and training programs are designed to lead you towards.
Anger Cure #2:
The second cure is well known by all Muslims as advice given by the Prophet, peace & blessings upon him:
If you are walking, stand still. If you are standing, sit. If you are sitting, lie down. Go and perform the ritual pre-prayer washing (wudu). And of course, pray.
After discovering the Psychological Reality that feeling always comes from thought in the moment, I noticed something about this second cure: it gets you away from trouble. By following this advice, you get out of harms way – or more accurately, you get others out of the way of your potential to cause them harm.
Anger Cure #3:
There is another way that I’ve experimented with and shared with students that seems to be remarkably effective to let the feelings of anger pass quickly and relatively painlessly.
It’s not something that you ‘do’, so much as a ‘not-doing’. It can be a very useful and practical tool any time you feel any negative emotion or sensation. It instantly leads you into a quiet mind and a state of presence. And it is a very powerful, elegant way to deal with the feeling of hunger, thirst, physical discomfort and any negative emotion in the moment it occurs.
I teach it in detail in “The Ramadan Challenge” course as a way to deal with hunger pangs and any moodiness that may come up while you’re fasting.
The only way to access the course is to join The Ocean before the upcoming deadline (Friday 30th April 2021 at 11:59pm):
