Lesson 3 of 6 · Kazm al ghayz is not silence
Who this instruction usually gets used on
Something worth saying out loud, because it affects who is reading this.
In practice the instruction to swallow your anger is not distributed evenly. It gets pressed hardest on the person with the least power in the room. Women hear it more than men. Children hear it more than adults. The person being wronged hears it more often than the person doing the wronging.
If you have been told to swallow it while somebody continued, then what you were handed was not this verse. Naming a wrong is not the same act as losing your temper, and a course on anger is not a reason to stop naming one.
There is a report in the Sahihayn that separates the two things exactly. He never struck anyone with his hand, not a woman and not a servant, and he never took revenge for himself. What he did take up was the violation of what Allah had made inviolable. If anybody has told you that a temper in the house has a religious licence behind it, that report is the answer, and the answer is not ours, it is theirs.
Qur’an and Sunnah
This separates the two things exactly: no revenge taken for himself, and the violation of what Allah made inviolable taken up. If anybody has told you that a temper in the house has a religious licence behind it, this is the answer, and it is the report's rather than ours.
A'isha reported that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) never beat anyone with his hand, neither a woman nor a servant, but only, in the case when he had been fighting in the cause of Allah and he never took revenge for anything unless the things made inviolable by Allah were made violable; he then took revenge for Allah, the Exalted and Glorious
Sahih Muslim 2328graded sound, sahihaynthe Arabic and its grading