Fighting in the defense of one’s country...

Fighting in the defense of one’s country, the cause of one’s faith ( Amr bil Maroof nahi an-il Munkar ), to protect one’s family is legitimate. The instinct of angst makes one capable of taking part in such difficult tasks. A pious and responsible Muslim will not remain a silent spectator to tyranny, injustice, dictatorship, perpetuation of sins, the forces of imperialism and colonialism etc.

Islam permits its people to stand firmly and confront these forces with courage and equanimity, In such situation, however, the angst of the people, should not prevail over wise counsel. ‘Ali, The Commander of the Faithful, says: “If you become a follower of anger, it will take you towards destruction."[^5] This is not right to totally suppress the instinct of anger and make the human being insensitive, unconcerned and shameless.

What is required is the need to avoid excessive and unnecessary expression of anger. This is possible with proper upbringing and grooming of the young persons. Like the other instincts in a person, anger too is in its rudimentary form since the very childhood. The quantum of anger in a person is the reflection of the upbringing he has received, and the environment he has been living in.

If the parents maintain the instinct of anger at a moderate level in their affairs, the child too will learn to follow suit. The children of excitable and wrathful parents too will learn to be similar in their future lives. The child sometimes shouts and rants in anger, his body shivers, the color of his face changes, he hits the ground with his feet, starts rolling on the floor, utters angry word and tries to go to a corner and hides himself.

But all these antics of the child may not be all pranks. It can be in anger and the parents have to investigate the cause of the anger and try to remove it. Anger definitely arises because of some worry or discomfort. Excessive pain, tiredness, sleeplessness, hunger, excessive thirst, cold and heat make the child restless and give rise to anger.

Doing things against the wish of the child, suppressing his freedom of movement, the feeling of undue attention to other children, feeding him forcibly can make the child restless and angry. Some parents teach the children in a subtle way to be angry. They shout at them and become unduly strict. If the child gets angry, they reciprocate with anger instead of trying to calm him down. The child thus gets trained to be a compulsively angry person.