Aiman Azlan's Blog

My wife and I try to make it a routine to have a brief reminder session every now and then. Usually after Maghrib prayer, we would sit down as a family and read something from one of the books we have in our collection. Our latest pick was the book " Tarbiyatul Aulad fil Islam " by Dr. Abdullah Nasir Ulwan. It is a brilliant book about parental responsibilities in raising a good child, and I highly recommend all parents and would-be parents to buy it and read it as a family. Last night, we read some passages about the factors contributing to misbehaviours in children. One subtopic in particular caught my eye: The Neglectfulness of Parents in Educating the Child. My heart shivered as I read the title because I was afraid that I could be one of those neglectful parents.  I flipped to the section and started reading. From words to sentences to passages, the section was a must read for all parents, would-be-parents, and eventual-parents. We really felt the effect of t...

So you’re walking all jolly and happy to the ATM. You look passionately at your card, full of hope that you will harvest your bounty that day. But then reality hits...you don’t have money! Then, you start counting the days when your money will return again, like two lovers temporarily separated. You keep an eye on your online bank account balance every day, every hour, every minute. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. When money comes in, you spend like normal until one day you go to the ATM and the panic revisits you. The cycle starts again. Sounds familiar? Why does this happen? Well, it’s easy to point fingers at the high cost of living and say, “We need more money”. If only we had more money, we wouldn’t be having this problem. But wait, I think we need to take a step back before making that conclusion. Because I think we might skip a few steps. Undeniably, there are people who genuinely need more money. I’m talking about people who can’t even cover the basics. Forget the wa...

I was listening to the radio and I heard the DJ having a conversation with another person about her son. Her son is in university and once in a while she visited him at his place. Apparently he lives off campus with some other guys, I think. One time, when she visited him, she took a look at his washroom and it was very dirty, like it hasn’t been cleaned in months. At this point in the conversation, she said that’s a typical guy thing. Right? That’s normal, right? Hahaha… At this point, I cringed and was a bit offended that she thought that was a “normal guy thing”. I couldn’t, in my good conscious, accept that as a normal guy thing. At the very least, it is an abnormal thing that has been normalized. But then again, I couldn’t blame her because I had a similar experience of my own. Being a public speaker, I travel a lot and mainly to universities. There was this one university in Malaysia that I went to (not going to say which one in particular), I arrived early for my talk so...

When I was in Canada, I attended a lecture about mercy (Rahma), given by a knowledgable scholar by the name Shaykh Ramzy Ajem . He began his lecture by stating that the hadeeth of mercy is one that all students of knowledge must learn before learning about Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) or about Islam in general. By having mercy as the foundation of Fiqh, students of knowledge can form a more compassionate understanding of Islam. Understanding the hadeeth of mercy may also serve as a protection for the students of knowledge such that it can guard them from formulating any violent interpretations of Islam. Pondering upon the hadeeth of mercy is crucial so that the students of knowledge can see the world and its inhabitants with the eye of mercy and not the eye of judgment. From mercy, all other noble characters bloom. Without mercy, there would be no life in Fiqh. It will be dry, harsh, and hard. Like a barren land in the middle of a drought, with no form of green life in sight. ...

Fear of making mistakes, fear of being laughed at, fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of not being good enough, or any other fears are all real and should be acknowledged, but many of them, if not all of them, are unreasonable. One of the many possible reasons why those fears are unreasonable is because they stem from having an unrealistic expectation of themselves, of others, and/or of life in general. These are among the many unrealistic expectations people can have: 1. They expect from themselves to be perfect. This is an unrealistic expectation of themselves. No expert started off perfect. David Beckham probably missed a few kicks when he first started, Albert Einstein probably didn’t know how to calculate 2+2 at some point, William Shakespeare probably struggled with saying his first English word, and you most definitely fell down the first time you tried to walk. It is perfectly normal to expect imperfections. The first time you do something will be decorated wit...

That's called a tantrum. No, your child is not possessed. Last Sunday, my wife and I (together with our 9-month-old son) went to a parenting seminar in Shah Alam. The seminar was about children's mental wellbeing, a topic which doesn't get a lot of attention from the society. Perhaps because the topic of mental health still has a lot of taboo associated with it. But I'm glad that we are slowing overcoming it, because we need to talk about it. It is like smelling smoke in the room, but no one has the guts to say anything about it. The seminar covered a lot of the important basics, setting up a good foundation to understand mental wellbeing. Among the topics discussed were the definition of mental illness, the different domains of a human's wellbeing, and the differences between the different professionals in the mental health field (e.g. the difference between a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist). During Q&A, I took the opportunity to ask a questi...

Last Saturday, an unfortunate incident happened where two families fought over what the media said was the wang hantaran (gift money) for a would-be wedding. Like a wildfire, the social media took this story to another level. There are many things that I could say and want to say about this story, but I want to focus mainly on our reaction to it. As you are reading this, it is possible that the people involved in this story are already sorry about what they did and they want to move on with their lives. Unfortunately, it is a bit difficult to do that since the video of the incident already went viral and people are talking about it. I was a bit doubtful whether I should join the conversation by writing this blog post due to the risk of drawing more attention to it. But in the spirit of hoping that we improve the way we conduct ourselves when something "hot" like this happens, I decided to write about it anyway. It became difficult to ignore. I noticed it when suddenly...