Aiman Azlan's Blog

In University of Toronto, I studied Psychology. Among Malaysians, I think this field doesn’t have the same appeal as law, medicine, or engineering. However, from time to time, I encounter individuals who show a glimmer of interest in this field and they ask me questions regarding it. "I want to pursue Psychology. Is it difficult?" Psychology, like how my professor puts it, is the most difficult science in the world. Why? Because the subjects you put under the microscope are humans. Humans are complex and sophisticated. In any given behaviour that we study, there will be more than one explanation from more than one perspective. The lectures are long. A typical Psychology lecture for me lasts 3 hours (with short breaks in between) and that is just one lecture. In a typical week, you are looking at about 3-4 lectures like that depending on what courses you take and how you organize your schedule. I am the type of individual who likes listening more than writing or re...

Reason No. 1: Allah rewards you based on the effort not the results If you give nothing less than your very best, Allah will reward you based on the results. That is what Allah expect of us – our very best. As long as we do it mainly for His sake. Reason No. 2: We can’t control the results but we can control the effort We choose whether we want to attend classes or not. We choose whether we want to study or not. We choose whether we want to ask questions or not. But, we can’t choose whether we get an A or not (at least not through legitimate means). Imagine you’re trying to grow a tree. You work your heart out in planting the tree – you chose the best seed, the best soil, planted the seed properly, watered it, gave it the nutrition it needs, etc. You did everything that you can to get a healthy tree. You gave it your best effort. But in the end, you can’t make the tree grow and bear its fruits. Your job is to plant the seed. Prophet Nuh spent 950 years of his life to call...

A few years back a friend of mine asked me whether it’s okay or not for a Muslim sister to wear jeans. Instead of giving her a quick yes or no answer, I gave it a bit of a thought and I figured that it’s better for her if I teach her how to catch a fish instead of giving her a fish. So I came up with a simple 3-step guideline which is applicable to both Muslim women and Muslim men. Step 1: Follow the Islamic dress code We Muslims do have a “dress code” and a code means a set of standards. This is a huge topic in and of itself that covers from head to toe, but as an example, I would like to take one aspect of the dress code and that is the parts of the body one must cover. There are certain parts of the body that we need to cover and the requirements are different for men and for women, according to situations. When I say “different”, I don’t mean one is better than the other. It just means that they are different and there’s nothing inherently wrong about that. These part...

We all have ideas buried inside our minds. It is one of the things that make us humans; we think about things, we reflect upon those things, and we create magnificent things out of those reflections. So I raise an eyebrow when someone says, “I don’t have any ideas!” It is not that we don’t have ideas. It is just that we don’t listen closely enough to the ideas that are bubbling inside our minds. Our minds are constantly chatting with us; giving us thoughts, suggestions, stories, possibilities, etc. Observe little kids. They are machines fueled by ideas in their minds. Whatever the mind says, they will do it – often times without hesitation. As time goes by, the ideas don’t go away. Inside, what happens is that they are kept quiet by rules, decorum, indoctrinations, and – interestingly enough – education. Our ideas go from a noisy chatter to a soft whisper. To make matters worse, we live in a noisy world. The hustle and bustle of everyday life can be so deafening that it drow...