What Will You Leave Behind? Legacy in Islam | Night 25 with the Qur’an

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

Raising Children Who Build for Eternity — Legacy, Sadaqah Jariyah, and the Long Game

There is a conversation most Muslim parents never have with their teenagers.

Not about career choices or university applications — those conversations happen constantly. Not about religious practice — that happens too, sometimes too much and too anxiously.

The conversation that almost never happens is this one: what are you building that will outlast you? What tree are you planting whose shade you may never sit in?

That conversation — about legacy, significance, and the long game — is what tonight’s episode is about. And this guide is for the parent who wants to bring it home.

Why legacy is a teenage conversation, not an adult one

Most parents think that the concept of legacy is something only for those who are older — when they have established themselves, figured out their direction, accomplished something worth building on.

That instinct is understandable and mistaken.

Legacy is not built later. It is built now — in the habits, the character, the knowledge, and the orientation toward Allah that your teenager is developing right now. The seed planted at seventeen has been growing for decades by the time a person reaches forty. The character built in adolescence is the foundation everything else will rest on.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Shareef — the educator and founder of Al-Maghrib Institute whose story tonight’s video tells — dreamed of what he would build when he was less than 20. He founded Al-Maghrib in his latter twenties. He was forty-seven when he passed away. The trees he planted are still growing.

The legacy conversation is not premature for your teenager. It is overdue.

The Islamic framework for legacy — what Islam actually teaches

The Prophet ﷺ said: “When a person dies, his deeds come to an end except for three: sadaqah jariyah — ongoing charity, knowledge that is benefited from, and a righteous child who prays for him.” (Muslim)

This hadith is the most complete Islamic account of legacy available — and it deserves careful attention from parents who want to raise teenagers with a long-game orientation.

Sadaqah jariyah is broader than the classic examples of wells and masajid suggest. Any resource invested in something that continues to benefit people after you are gone qualifies. The institution built. The program started. The fund established. The project launched. The principle is: put something into the world that keeps giving.

For teenagers, this means that the projects they begin now — however small, however local — can be sadaqah jariyah. The health fair organized at the masjid that becomes an annual event. The tutoring program started for younger students. The school initiative that will one day become a k-12.  The community initiative launched and then handed off. Small beginnings with the right intention can become ongoing charity that outlasts the person who started it.

Knowledge that is benefited from is Sheikh Muhammad al-Shareef’s primary legacy — and it is available to every Muslim regardless of whether they found an institution. Knowledge shared genuinely, carried by the person who received it into their own life and passed on to others, is sadaqah jariyah. Your teenager doesn’t need to be a scholar. They need to share what they know with sincerity and care.

Quick example: I remember a Muslim convert who visited Mexico with a dawah group. They knew so much more than him, but he just focused on teaching surat al-Fatihah to every person who accepted Islam. His intent was to benefit from each time they recited it. We all know surat al-Fatihah alhamdulillah, but did we every consider that possibility, and the potential for serious return in the hereafter?

A righteous child who prays for their parents is perhaps the most personally relevant form of legacy for Muslim parents reading this — because it is a description of what you are building right now. The du’a your teenager makes for you after you are gone is your sadaqah jariyah arriving. Which means that raising a child who prays for you is itself an act of planting a tree whose shade you will benefit from in the most literal possible sense.

The Sulayman ﷺ lesson for parents and teenagers

Prophet Sulayman’s ﷺ request — “grant me a kingdom such as will not belong to anyone after me” [38:35] — makes many Muslims uncomfortable. It sounds like the request of someone seeking glory for its own sake.

But Allah gave it to him. And praised him as an excellent servant in the same moment.

The lesson for your teenager — and for you — is that ambition rooted in the right intention is not un-Islamic. The desire to build something significant, to leave something that outlasts you, to ask Allah for the resources and the platform to do something meaningful — this is a legitimate and honored aspiration when it comes from a heart already turned toward Allah; the heart seeking the pleasure of Allah.

The conversation worth having with your teenager is not: be humble and don’t want too much. It is: want greatly, ask boldly, and make sure what you’re building is for Allah rather than for yourself.

Sulayman wanted an unprecedented kingdom. What does your teenager want to build? Have you asked them? Have you told them that asking Allah for it — specifically, boldly, repeatedly — is exactly what a prophet did?

That conversation could change everything.

The quiet majority — redefining success for your teenager

One of the most important things tonight’s video communicates — and one that parents need to reinforce explicitly — is the significance of the quiet majority.

Most of Al-Maghrib’s students did not become scholars or community leaders. They went on with their lives. But they were transformed. They approached their careers differently. They raised their children differently. They interacted with society differently — because of what they learned.

That quiet transformation — unglamorous, invisible to the world, measurable only in the changed texture of ordinary daily life — is, in aggregate, the most important part of Sheikh Muhammad al-Shareef’s legacy.

Your teenager does not need to be famous to leave a significant legacy. They need to be genuinely transformed — and to live that transformation in the ordinary choices of an ordinary life. The doctor who treats every patient as khalifah. The teacher whose students remember one thing that changed how they saw the world. The parent whose children grow up with taqwa. The friend who showed up when it mattered.

The quiet legacy is the legacy that actually changes the world. Help your teenager aspire to it.

Practical guidance for parents

Have the legacy conversation explicitly. Ask your teenager: what do you want to build that will outlast you? Not as a pressure question — as a genuine invitation to think about the long game. If they don’t have an answer, that’s fine. The question itself plants a seed.

Name the gap together. Look at your community, your masjid, your neighborhood together. What needs doing that nobody is doing? Sheikh Muhammad al-Shareef saw a gap and designed something to fill it. Help your teenager develop the habit of noticing gaps and asking: could I be the one to fill this?

Model sadaqah jariyah visibly. What are you building that will outlast you? Do your teenagers know? Do they see you investing in things that will benefit people after you are gone? Legacy is caught as much as taught.

Make du’a for legacy together. The Sulayman ﷺ du’a — asking Allah specifically and boldly for the resources to build something significant — is a du’a you can make as a family. Ask Allah together for what you want to build. Let your teenager see you making that du’a. Let them make their own version of it.

Honor the people whose shade you’re sitting in. Who planted the trees whose shade your family benefits from? Name them. Tell your teenager their stories. Make du’a for them together. That practice builds ummah consciousness, gratitude, and the understanding that they are part of a chain — and that their job is to extend it.

Warning signs that legacy orientation is absent or distorted

Complete short-term thinking — no capacity to defer gratification, no interest in building anything that takes longer than a few months. This is not a moral failing, but a developmental signal that the long-game orientation needs cultivation.

Legacy as performance — the desire to be famous, recognized, and celebrated rather than to genuinely contribute. This is the riya conversation from Night 24 applied to legacy specifically. The distinction between building for visibility and building for impact is worth making explicit.

Paralysis in the face of the question — “I’m too young,” “I’m too ordinary,” “I don’t know what I’m good at.” This is often fear masquerading as humility. The response is the examples: Dawud, al-Bukhari, Sheikh Muhammad al-Shareef — all of whom began in obscurity, all of whom built something that outlasted them.

Discussion questions for families

For teens:

1. What gap do you see in your community, school, or masjid that nobody is filling? What would it take to begin addressing it?
2. If you could ask Allah for anything — specifically, boldly, the way Sulayman ﷺ asked — what would you ask for? What do you want to build?
3. Who is someone whose legacy shaped you — someone whose tree you’re sitting under right now? What did they plant in you?

For parents:

1. Have you told your teenager what you are building that will outlast you? Do they know what your sadaqah jariyah is or could be?
2. How do you talk about success in your home — in terms of achievement and recognition, or in terms of genuine contribution and transformation?
3. What tree are you planting together as a family right now?

For discussion together:

1. Read the sadaqah jariyah hadith together. Which of the three forms of ongoing legacy does your family feel most called to? What would it look like to begin building it?
2. What is the gap in your community that your family could be the ones to fill?
3. Who are the people whose du’a we should be making tonight — the ones whose legacy shaped ours?

The bottom line

Your teenager is standing at the beginning of the long game. The seeds they plant now will be growing for decades. The character they build now is the foundation everything else will rest on. The knowledge they pursue, the habits they form, the trees they plant — these are not preliminary to their legacy.

They are their legacy. Beginning now.

Help them plant something worth leaving. Help them ask Allah boldly for what they need to plant it. Help them understand that the shade they leave is already needed — by people they may never meet, in a future they may never see.

That is the long game. And it begins tonight.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 25 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 26 — Taqwa: The Foundation of Everything You Build

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community:

Related:

The Why Behind Our Actions | Night 24 with the Qur’an

30 Nights with the Qur’an: A Ramadan Series for Muslim Teens