Anger · a Light

A man asked for advice and got two words, repeated

A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him for advice. He said: do not become angry. The man asked again and got the same answer. He asked several times, and each time the reply was the same two words. The report is short and the repetition is the content. Given one instruction to carry away for life, the man was handed neither a doctrine nor a devotion but a temper. Elsewhere the Prophet ﷺ defined strength in the same terms: the strong man is not the one who throws people in wrestling, but the one who controls himself when he is angry. That is an unusual definition in a warrior society, and it is stated as a correction to what everybody there assumed.

Abu Hurayra · Madinah

Source · Bukhari 6116; the definition of strength, Bukhari 6114