ভূমিকা

...Muhammad ibn Ya’qub (al-Kulayni), from ‘Ali ibn Ibrahim, from Muhammad ibn ‘Isa, from Yunus, from Dawud ibn Farqad, who reports al ‘Imam al-Sadiq (A) to have said, “Anger is the key (that opens the door) to all kinds of vices.”[^1] Exposition The great researcher Ahmad ibn Muhammad, popularly known as Ibn Maskawayh, in his book Taharat al-’a’raq, which is a fine book of rare excellence in beauty of style and orderliness of contents, writes something which can be summarized as follows: Anger, in fact, is an inner psychic movement due to which a state of agitation is produced in the heart’s blood, arousing a desire for vengeance.

And when this agitation becomes more violent, it intensifies the fire of anger. A violent commotion in the blood seizes the heart, filling the arteries and the brain with a flurry of dark smoke, on account of which the mind and the intellect lose control and become powerless.

At that time, as the hukama’ maintain, the inner state of the person resembles a cave where fire has broken out, filling it with flames and suffocating clouds of smoke that leap out of its mouth with intense heat and a fiery howl. When that happens, it becomes extremely difficult to pacify such a person and to extinguish the fire of his wrath; whatever is thrown in it to cool it down becomes a part of it, adding to its intensity.

It is for this reason that such a man becomes blinded to propriety and deaf to guidance. In such a condition, there is no hope for him. Then Ibn Maskawayh adds: “Hippocrates says that he is more hopeful about a ship encircled by a fierce storm and violent winds which has been knocked away from its course by the sea waves into rocky waters, than about an enraged person.

Because, in such conditions, the sailors may somehow manage to save the ship by means of clever maneuvers, but there is no hope of deliverance for the soul engulfed in rage; for all such efforts as counsel, advice, and exhortation fail to appease him.