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He Who Gathers Money Lives By It; He Who Makes an Impact Lives After It

Dr. Abdullah Sadiq Dahlan

Publication Date: July 12, 2026 23:19 KSA

Many businessmen and traders have spent their lives struggling and working, staying up late, taking risks, until they built great fortunes that were the fruit of their effort, intelligence, and determination. These fortunes are their right, and they are the first to benefit from them in their lives.

But the question that imposes itself: What will remain after departure? Experience has shown that many huge fortunes do not last more than a generation or two; they are divided among heirs, disputes begin, companies are sold, investments are fragmented, and the effort of a whole life is wasted in a few years. The reason is not a lack of money, but the absence of a vision that transforms wealth into an eternal legacy.

The greatest investment is not in stocks or real estate, but in work that continues to give after its owner's death. The Prophet (peace be upon him) guided us to this great meaning by saying: 'When a son of Adam dies, his deeds come to an end except for three: ongoing charity, beneficial knowledge, or a righteous child who prays for him.' Therefore, the culture of endowment (waqf) is among the greatest contributions of Islamic civilization to humanity. Waqf is not merely building a mosque, great as that reward is, but it is an integrated developmental system that includes universities, schools, hospitals, research centers, scholarships, orphan care, charitable housing, support for innovation, environmental conservation, and funding social projects that serve people for tens or even hundreds of years. Prestigious global universities such as Harvard and Oxford were established on huge endowments that contributed to their continued academic excellence and financial independence. In the Islamic world, endowments for centuries funded schools, libraries, hospitals, and care for the poor and travelers, becoming a pillar of Islamic civilization. In the Kingdom, with the significant development in regulating the non-profit sector and encouraging endowments, the opportunity is now more ripe than ever for businessmen to leave a mark that does not end with their death. The nation today does not only need donors, but founders of sustainable endowments that build people, support education, fund scientific research, nurture talent, provide treatment, and create job opportunities. I call on every businessman who has achieved great success to ask himself: What will people say about me fifty years from now? Will they remember the size of my wealth that generations divided? Or will they remember a university I established, a waqf hospital that treated thousands of patients, or a scholarship fund that graduated thousands of doctors, engineers, and scientists? Real money is that which leaves an impact after its owner's departure. Great wealth is not what we possess today, but what remains as a witness for us before God and a good memory in people's lives. Waqf is not spending that reduces money; it is an eternal investment whose giving never stops. O wealthy: God has not made you stewards of money to count its numbers, but to create life for people through it. A day will come when each of us leaves this world, carrying neither palaces, nor companies, nor balances, but only his deeds. And the question that faces every wealthy person remains: What did you leave behind? Did you leave money that heirs divided and then scattered with the days? Or did you leave a waqf that teaches a student, treats a patient, shelters an orphan, helps a needy person, and sows hope, so your reward continues as long as its giving lasts? True wealth is not in what we own, but in what continues to have impact after our departure. Blessed is he who makes a portion of God's blessings a path to His pleasure and leaves for generations a legacy of good before leaving them a legacy of money. Let every capable person have a waqf known to God, even if not known to people, and let there be between the servant and his Lord a sincere deed seeking only His noble face. That is the investment that never loses, the trade that never fails. What drives me to repeat this message is what I see in society of the wealth of some rich people who were not granted time to leave an impact of their money on society, but left a great fortune that heirs of various generations quarrel over. How many wills were left that were not recognized and were contested? The heirs forget to pray for the testator and are busy with what he left. The truth is that he wasted the opportunity in his life and left it to the heirs after his death.

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