Allah (S.W.A) is eager
                                    to forgive us, but are we ready to forgive those who annoy us? 
Forgiving is a very difficult thing – harder than praying 
Salatul Asr or Isha or some other deed of sacrifice.
 Why is it so hard to forgive when all
                                    the power to do so is at our disposal? 
It is because of anger.
                                    
 There is a commonly held fallacy that when the culprit is forgiven, he/she
 goes free without a
                                    scratch; this makes forgiveness seem unfair.
                                    
This,
                                    in fact, is a mistake in reasoning. Forgiveness, as we will see
 later, may be a fast means of punishing the insulter at his/her own game.
 For example, many people
                                    provoke battles so that they can use the 
response of the victim to justify their aggression. 
If the victim declines to fight and graciously overlooks the insult and
                                    forgives, 
the
                                    aggressor has no choice but to wallow in the guilt of his unjustified aggression.
 Guilt causes as much damage to the body as anger does.
 Both anger and guilt cause similar emotional turmoil to the heart. 
Forgiving is one way of avoiding anger
                                    and its negative effect on our bodies.
 Anger is a disease of the soul.
 Anger is a handicap to character building and spiritual development. 
It is a thing we must
                                    always keep tightly hitched on a leash. 
We cannot afford to lose it at any one time.
 It is a drain on our lifeline supply of happiness.
 When we are angry, we grouch, we growl,
                                    we kick, we boil – 
we are cantankerous and nobody would desire to be in our company. 
Thus anger leaves us abandoned, isolated and dejected.
                                    
Anger
                                    is the opposite of happiness.
 No one can be angry and happy at the same time.
 A heart that accommodates anger finds no room for happiness. 
An angry person is a
                                    very unhappy person and can also be dangerous. 
We must not let anger rule over our lives. We must be in charge and make decisions
                                    
without
                                    anger. Decisions made out of anger tend to be wrong, disastrous and regrettable. 
Caution! Do not use forgiving as a form of punishment;
                                    the ‘Hey, look, you missed me,’ 
kind of thing. Used this way, forgiving can trigger anger and more aggression, 
the aggressor, reasoning that he/she did not achieve the desired response from
                                    the insulted. 
On the other hand, forgiving for the sake of Allah (S.W.A) 
has the power that stimulates remorse which can turn an aggressor into
                                    a 
repentant
                                    person and a good one. 
 
Another reason to consider when contemplating forgiving is 
that we may not be the intended victims of the insult.
  Angry people tend to lash out at anyone who gets in their way.  
We must recognize such incidences and refuse to be swooped into problems that are 
none of our business.
 Avoid being the monkey
                                    in the middle.
 When there is no good explanation for someone’s bad behavior towards you,
 know that this is the time to overlook
                                    and forgive.
 Repetitive insult may be a cause to take action, but generally,
 many day to day annoyances should be overlooked and forgiven. 
Last but not least, provocative
                                    and insolent behavior towards us may
 simply be a call for help.
 If we remain patient and self-restraint, we can get the 
misbehaving person to tell us what it is that is making
                                    him/her grouchy.
 This is a chance for us to serve Allah (S.W.A) by
 alleviating his/her burden - that 
is if we have the ability to do something
                                    about it or  just by 
lending a sympathetic ear. It is an opportunity t to do a good deed.