"Sir, does legacy matter?” asked the young student during my recent lecture at a University in Lahore. The hush in the audience made me realise that it was a very important question and over 500 students were interested to know the answer. Maybe it represented their thought process about what had crystallised over the last few years in Pakistan. Or maybe the social media had confused them into thinking that whatever is there, it is in the now, and they should not care about the imprint they would leave. Either way, it definitely was a very profound question.
What is legacy? In my understanding, legacy is simply how one is remembered by the people he/she has interacted with in life. Do people pray or abuse once a name is mentioned? Is the name blessed or cursed? This is at the individual level and holds true for each one of us.
Then there is a legacy which has shaped the journey of the species. As research shows, nearly 117 billion people have inhabited this planet. Estimating the total number of people who have impacted history is very challenging due to the vast scope and diversity of contributions across eras, societies, cultures and regions. However, it is safely presumed that this number would be between a few thousand to a million individuals, who have had a significant influence on society, culture, science, politics and other fields. If we take this number as 1 million, 0.085% of all the humans who have been born have left a mark.
Of these 1 million, the most impactful have been the religious figures. Prophets Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and our beloved Prophet, Muhammad (PBUH), defined history; men like Buddha, Baba Guru Nanak, Confucius, Martin Luther, St. Paul, Zoroaster, to name some others, also left an ineffaceable contour on the fabric of time. Then the conquerors, the makers and breakers of empires, have left an impact like Alexander, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, Attila the Hun, Cyrus the Great and many others. Some of them are remembered as being kind and just. Others as sociopathic killers. But contrary to the religious figures, they have no followers today. In some cases, even their graves are unknown, and they lie somewhere in Mother Earth, unloved and lost to the savagery of time.
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others
Why is legacy important? The answer is simple and difficult. The simple answer is that we, being social animals, want to be remembered in as positive a manner as possible, after we leave this planet for the journey hereafter. Whether one has affected a single life or millions of lives, no one wants to be remembered in a bad way. The tombs spread across the globe in all races, languages and religions, erected over the millennia, are a testimony to the desire of humans to live beyond death and be remembered.
The difficult part to understand is that even people who are atheists and do not believe in life after death, also have a desire to leave a good legacy. Ultimately, it reflects a universal human desire for significance and connection, transcending mortality. To leave an impact ensures that life had a purpose, a meaning. Being reminisced is as important as being alive. No one wants to go into the shadows as if one hadn’t existed. Proof of existence is the continuity of one’s legacy.
However, when we look around, we see very few icons today in the world. Extremely powerful people think there is no end. Contrary to the teachings of our most esteemed Prophet (PBUH), this world is their wherewithal. I have witnessed a lot of “pharaohs” in my life whose death, instead of being mourned, was rather celebrated. I have seen people carrying placards to graves, on which, instead of prayers, the worst type of slogans were written. These people inflicted pain on others, forgetting the most important fact that ultimately, the grave is the great equaliser. It does not care who is buried. The timeline of decomposition of the dead is the same, whether a king or a pauper.
I have been lucky to have seen the work of Edhi sahib very closely. I asked him once how he could do what he did. His simple answer was that life is a blessing, and our Prophet (PBUH) ordained that our top responsibility was towards other humans. The Prophet (PBUH) proved through his conduct what humanness is: whether it was to enquire about the health of the woman who would throw bad things and had not done so for a few days, or it was at Taif, when the Angel Gabriel asked his permission to decimate the land and the people who had injured him but instead, he prayed for them. There are countless other examples.
Let me pose my respected readers a simple question: Would you like to be remembered like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Iqbal, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Abdul Sattar Edhi and other men and women of high moral standing who proved their worth? Or would you emulate the various personalities across the world for whom morality and high character are just lip service?
If the answer is yes to the first type of people, legacy matters. And if the answer is yes to the second type of people, it does not. I leave the answer to my respected readers.
We need to remember that Karma exists. Do good and good shall happen. Prayers of the people who pray for you, without any relationship because you did a good deed to them, without any expectation, do go to the Almighty. Hurting people, through arrogance or acting like a “pygmy pharaoh” will make one pay the price, most likely in this world.
The great Pericles (495-429 BCE) said, “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Thus, leaving a legacy is about planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. So, plant them carefully, with full focus on the moment you will cease to exist.