Nobody told me that losing someone would also mean losing weeks of your life to paperwork.
I watched families go through it — all from the frantic searching through drawers and calls to banks with death certificates to the arguments that started because nobody knew what he would have wanted, because he had never said. I had seen people spend the first days of their grief not grieving, but managing.
Untangling the loose ends. Guessing the rest.
I thought it happened because people were unprepared. Maybe just disorganised. Simply weren't the type to have their affairs in order.
Then I looked at my own life and realised I was exactly the same.
I knew what I wanted for my Janazah.
I knew who I wanted to raise my children.
I knew which accounts I held and where my will was supposed to be.
But none of it was written down. None of it was somewhere anyone could find it.
I wasn't unprepared because I didn't care. I was unprepared because, like almost everyone, I had convinced myself there would be more time.
The gap I couldn't find anything to fill
I looked for something that could help. All I could find were generic "estate planning" worksheets designed for accountants or a notebook with a motivational quote on the cover.
I couldn't find something that was actually built for a Muslim family — that understood the Janazah comes before probate, that zakat must be settled from the estate, that guardianship has Islamic dimensions that UK law doesn't automatically account for or that a wasiyyah and a Western will are not the same thing.
I looked for something that covered the spiritual and the practical in the same place. That had space for the 72-hour emergency checklist and space for the personal letters. That was serious enough to sit next to a will but human enough to feel like it had been made with love.
I couldn't find it.
So I built it.
I built The Legacy Companion because I saw the gap myself.
Because I looked at my own affairs and realised that the people I love most would have struggled if something had happened to me. I believe that preparing for death is not pessimism — rather, it is one of the most loving things we can do for the people we will one day leave behind.
What this planner is — and what it isn't
The Legacy Companion is not a legal document. It does not replace a will, a Lasting Power of Attorney, or professional Islamic estate planning. What it does is make sure that when those things are needed, they can be found — and that the people looking for them know where to look.
It is a place to record your Janazah wishes so your family can act swiftly and correctly. A place to write your personal messages so the people you love hear from you, in your own words, long after you are gone. A place to put everything in one place so that grief does not also have to mean chaos.
It is, above everything else, an act of love.
The Islamic understanding of this
We are a community that is not supposed to be afraid of death. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Remember often the destroyer of pleasures" — meaning death. To remind us of what is real and what is temporary.
Preparing for death is one of the most grounded, most Islamic things we can do.
It honours the people around us.
It fulfils our obligations.
It ensures our estate is administered according to our faith. It gives us the chance to say, in writing, the things we might never say out loud.
It is for people who are living — and who want their lives, and their legacy, to mean something.
A note to anyone who has been putting this off
I know why you haven't done it yet.
It's because sitting down with your own mortality feels heavy. Because you're not sure where to start. Because you keep thinking you'll get to it when things are less busy.
You don't need a free weekend or a crisis. You need an afternoon and a pen. That's all this is.
Open the planner and start with Section 1 — the 72-Hour Emergency Checklist. Just fill in the names and numbers. That's it for today. You can close it after that.
One section at a time and one page at a time. There is no right way to do this, and there is no perfect moment. There is only now — and the people who will one day be grateful you started.
Barak Allahu feekum
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for taking this seriously.
Thank you for being the kind of person who thinks about these things — because you love the people in your life enough to spare them.
That is what The Legacy Companion is for.
Founder, The Legacy Companion