Aiman Azlan's Blog

This year will be my 2nd year of being married to the woman I love. The photo on the right was taken in Jakarta, on 13 December 2015, which was our 2-year anniversary as husband and wife. Within those 2 years, Allah blesses us with a trust: our son, Rayyan. Perhaps it is cliche to say this, but time does fly by. I guess that is the danger of time: it tends to go by unnoticed. You sleep, eat, and work on autopilot mode. In effect, you lose track of time. What is worse, you lose sight of the things that matter most around you. Even when I am babysitting my son, I am still surprised by how much he has grown. He is in front of my eyes all the time and yet, there are things that go unnoticed. The currency of any human relationship is attention. Your children become nourished by the attention you give them. Being present when they are with you is a challenge, especially when there are so many distractions around like TVs and smartphones. When children don't get the attentio...

Assalamualaikum Aiman, I am engaged to this person, but I have doubts. I found out that we have different goals in life. I am more focused on pleasing Allah with this relationship and I want to better my relationship with Him. My fiancee on the other hand, is more focused on material wealth. I am not saying that I am not interested in material wealth. To a certain degree, it is a need in life. However, I prefer not to make material wealth the purpose of my life. From my observation, my fiancee seems to be preoccupied with material wealth. I am conflicted. Should I marry my fiancee, if I know that we both have different goals in life? ---------- Waalaikumussalam, Thank you for asking the question. Generally speaking, an engagement is not a binding contract. Meaning, you are not obligated to marry the person you are engaged with. During the period of engagement, the relationship between you and the person you plan on marrying are similar to the relationship between any unre...

Recently the Malaysian government had passed the NSC Bill 2015. It is essentially an anti-terrorism effort, one which we clearly need. However, even with the word "security" in its name, the content of the bill doesn't leave you with much sense of security. To be fair, the basic intention of the bill is praiseworthy. Terrorism is indeed a problem and we need solutions. This blog post isn't written to go against that basic intention, but rather to question the manner in which that basic intention is being carried out in action. Moreover, we already have anti-terrorism laws in place. As a concern citizen of Malaysia, I can't help but to force myself to read up on the bill and it is uncomfortable for me to dive into any legal document since it is not my cup of tea, the language is very dry, the terminologies can be a bit and the text is usually long. Ask yourself if you've ever read the terms and conditions of an agreement before clicking on the "I agre...

As a student, I think we individually know what is our main purpose being in university: to study. But, what kind of study would be considered fitting for a university student? Surely we should expect more coming from someone who has upgraded himself or herself from secondary school. Is it enough to simply memorize facts and “vomit” them out during exam time? Then, forget almost everything? That is more similar to a copier than a student, let alone a university student. Knowledge is not to be copied and pasted, rather it should be analyzed and applied. But I guess we are more concerned about our grades than anything else. What if grades don’t haunt us as much as they do? Imagine two scenarios: A university student achieved a 4.0 CGPA, but is unable to fully explain what he has learned in class to other people. He memorized a lot of facts, but he didn’t understand them. A university student achieved a 2.5 CGPA, but is able to effectively explain and extract lessons from what he h...