Frequently asked questions

A free, secure digital vault where you can record your final wishes, debts, spiritual instructions, and other important information — so your loved ones are not left guessing “what next?” after you are gone.

No. Isti’dad is not a substitute for a legally binding will, and it does not override the fixed inheritance shares (Fara’id) set out under Shariah. It is a companion to a proper will — a place for the practical and personal information a formal will usually does not cover.

• Debts you owe, or that are owed to you.
• An optional bequest of up to one-third (1/3) of your estate to people outside your fixed heirs, following the practice of the Prophet ﷺ.
• Missed zakat, fasts, or Hajj badal to be carried out on your behalf.
• Guardianship wishes, funeral and burial instructions, final messages, important documents, and other information.

You designate trustees in advance. When you pass away, Isti’dad runs a multi-step verification process involving your trustees and supporting evidence before releasing anything. It is built specifically so that no single person can trigger a release alone or falsely.

If you would like more detail on how it protects you, write to us at whatnextlegacyapp@gmail.com.

No, our multi-step verification implementation will require other trustees to verify with evidence as part of the release process.

Then your vault stays closed. That is the honest answer, and it is the cost of a design where nobody but your trustees can open it. Appoint more than the minimum, keep their contact details current, and tell them they are trustees — a surprising number of people never do.

If a trustee deletes their account we stand them down and tell you, so you know to appoint somebody else.

Yes, at any time while your account is active.

No one but you. Not your family, not the trustees you appoint, not our staff — there is no screen anywhere in our tools that shows the contents of a vault.

Everything sensitive is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is stored, passwords are hashed, and everything travels over TLS. Somebody who obtained a copy of our database would get ciphertext.

Nobody here reads your vault. There is no screen anywhere in our tools that shows the contents of one — we can count how many sections you have filled in, and nothing of what is in them. The privacy policy sets all of this out.

Because records go stale. A debt gets settled, a child is born, a trustee moves abroad and changes their number — and your trustees can only act on what you wrote down. So we remind you, as often or as rarely as you like. Opening the app counts, so if you use it regularly you will barely hear from us.

If you stop answering, the reminders widen — but only to ask whether you are well. The first two go to you alone; the 3rd also asks your trustees to check in on you, and the 4th also reaches our team, who may try to telephone you or one of them. Every one of those stops the moment you open the app, and none of them can open your vault.

No. It is optional, we ask once while you are setting up your vault, and you can remove it at any time from Settings. It is used for exactly one thing: checking you are well after a long silence. Withdrawing your consent deletes the number in the same action.

Yes, at any time. Settings → Your records produces a PDF of everything you have written. It is built on your own device, so a printed copy never passes through our servers. Keep one somewhere safe.

Yes. Each trustee closes their access when they are done, and the vault is deleted only once every trustee has closed it — so no single trustee can delete it alone. It stays recoverable for 30 days after that.

It means the vault is built to work alongside Shariah, not around it: it does not touch or override your fixed Fara’id shares, it lets you record the optional one-third bequest per the Prophetic tradition ﷺ, and it gives you a dedicated place for spiritual matters like missed zakat, fasts, and Hajj badal that a standard will typically ignores.

If you have questions about how a specific feature aligns with Shariah, please ask — we are glad to walk through it.

Isti’dad is free, and will stay free. We see it as Sadaqatul Jariyah (ongoing charity) for the team and contributors behind it, kept running through volunteers, sponsors, and donations. If you would like to support it as a developer, creator, sponsor, or donor, we would welcome that.

Yes, at any time — from Settings in the app, or from this website. Nothing is destroyed for 30 days so you can change your mind. You can also write to whatnextlegacyapp@gmail.com.

Use the Feedback button at the top of any page. It is anonymous — the table it writes to has no author column, so we could not tell you who sent something even if we wanted to.