Aiman Azlan's Blog

Your friends got married and you don't want to feel left out. Marriage isn’t like your school field trip, where you go only if your friends go. You should have your own stand in the matter, as opposed to following the trend. You are already an adult after all, so you should be able to weigh in the good and the bad in order to make a decision yourself. Plus, just because your friends get married doesn’t mean you should either. Maybe your friends are ready to get married, but you aren’t. Yet. Like fruits in a tree, they don’t all ripe at the same time. So you can’t pluck a fruit before its time. Be patient. You want to make your parents happy, by sacrificing your own happiness. It is truly a noble goal to make your parents happy. But with all due respect to our parents, we are the ones who will be living with our spouse, day in and day out. If we don’t want to be in that relationship to begin with, then that could open up so many doors for bad things to happen. Plus, it is a bit i...

The question of culture and Islam has been a huge one in my mind and the minds of so many Malaysian Muslims. Recently, this question has come to light again with the accusation of "arabization" of Malaysian Muslims. In other, more "classical" manifestations of our lack of understanding in the harmony between Islam and culture, we see confusions with regards to gender relations, women's roles in society, dress code, social mannerisms, and "Islamic" food. It seems like we have to move forward to a more back-to-basic, but at the same time, wider and deeper discussion about the topic. No longer can we rely on simple rote memorization, lazy copy-and-paste, and blind adherence to the text as a short cut way to practice religion. Especially when we are currently in an age of cultural mixing, thanks to the advent of social media. Mixing can be beneficial, but detrimental if one doesn't have strong roots to begin with. Without proper understanding of ...

It has just come to my attention that I have been doing public speaking for about 4 years. I started off in 2011, while still being a university student at University of Toronto, Canada. The first invitation that I received was from Multimedia University, Cyberjaya. It didn’t occur to me back then that I’ll be turning what I thought was occasional talk invitations to an actual career. So began my journey traveling all over Malaysia and beyond (Singapore, Brunei, South Korea, and Australia) to speak to mainly to the university level audience about youth-related topics. In my limited experience, more often than not I would come across a similar issue among many university students, especially Malaysian students. Like a pattern that I am seeing again and again, it seems to me that many of our university students lack confidence in themselves. So I ask myself: how can I help? Once you have identified the problem, you immediately think of a solution. The thing is, you can only offer a...

It is not enough to think positively once in a while. We don't want positive thinking to be something that we do. We would like for it to become something that we are. We want to become positive, especially in bad times. The sad thing is, it is not that easy to do. What is more sad is, often times it is easier to become negative in the face of a negative situation. Our emotional reaction to something will affect our overall state and our overall state will affect the people around us. The bad news is, if we are negative, then our negativity will affect those who are around us. The good news is, the same thing can be said about positivity. The better news is, we can change from negative to positive by changing our mindset. We have to intercept our negative thinking as it happens and modify it into something more positive. This doesn't mean that we deny the bad thing that had happened. We already established that it is a "bad" thing. We are only changing how we pe...

Attachment is a powerful thing for any human being. When we have build a strong attachment to something or someone, it is very difficult to let the attachment go. It hurts to let it go. But here in lies the real test: who is the priority in our life? In the case of our attachments, the dilemma usually occurs when we have to choose between one of two: ourselves (the ego) or Allah. When a Muslim is asked who is number 1 in his or her life, he or she will most probably answer with confidence, “Well, Allah of course!” Saying it is one thing, but practicing it is another thing entirely. It is easy to give the right answer when that question is asked. It is in the textbook after all. But actions speak louder than words. It is good that we say it, but do we do it? What do our actions “say”? At the heat of the moment is when we are truly tested. It is effortless to say that we prioritize Allah over everything when there’s no hardship to put our foot where our mouth is. When hardship befa...

How we see a situation makes a difference in how we feel about it. Both Ahmed and Ali are practicing their English speaking. They both are in the same class, learning with the same teacher, and living in similar socioeconomic circumstance. They both speak English at a similar level. Both of them had make mistakes and were laughed at by their peers. However, Ahmed was pretty happy about it, while Ali was disappointed. Ahmed intended to try again next time and do better. Ali simply gave up. Isn't it interesting how two individuals experiencing the same bad situation can react to it in two opposite ways? Shouldn't they feel the same emotion, given that they experienced the same bad situation? Similar events that happen to people should produce similar reactions from them. Right? That seems logical, like 2+2. But in our daily life, we don't consistently see that happening. Two people lost a leg, but one is living life normally and the other is spiralling down into deep ...

Assalamualaikum. I have a question about polygamy. When I read on how to have a good family in Islam, it is said that women have to be presentable and adorn themselves all the time, take effort and time to beautify themselves, to always meeting their husband's needs. If not, their husbands will shift their attention to other more attractive women out there. While men, it is in their nature to always notice beautiful women so it is not them to be blamed. Plus, they have this right of polygamy, and often cases that I heard, they get married when they're bored with their first wives. What is this? Why do men think of women as just one option, with back up options in mind. They can find another women and get married again whenever they like. Why are only women who need to struggle more to make marriage work? I feel even more disgusted when I witness this from some male public figures. Thus I've been thinking of this for a long period of time already, and most of my gir...