What Makes a Leader?
Last evening, I turned seventy-four. Or, as my grandchildren insist on saying, seventy-four years young.
The celebration was held at La Terrazza. I arrived in my faithful mustard-coloured [Volkswagen], “Foxy”, while the rest of the family travelled in their own vehicles. Two daughters, a son, a daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren transformed an ordinary restaurant table into a small republic of laughter.
Birthdays do not merely count years; they reopen memory.
One grandchild asked about Manhattan. Another insisted on hearing stories about Cairo and its pyramids. A third wanted to know whether Copenhagen was really as beautiful as the photographs suggested. Soon the table travelled across Dubai, Paris, Lahore, Islamabad and several other cities that had once left their footprints upon my passport and imagination.
Children are natural historians.
They ask questions adults have forgotten to ask.
Then, unexpectedly, the conversation shifted from places to power.
From cities to countries.
From countries to those who lead them.
What makes a leader?
Not a ruler.
Not a politician.
A leader.
At that moment I noticed him.
The navy robe.
The faded jeans.
The tiny brass bells stitched along the hem.
“Bābā Tāl” [theBell-man].
He was not interrupting. He was listening.
Listening to the children.
Listening to the laughter.
Listening perhaps to history itself.
Then he leaned closer and whispered:
“A nation does not become small when its pockets are empty. A nation becomes small when its spine bends.”
The sentence lingered longer than the clinking of glasses.
Because suddenly I remembered a phrase recently spoken by Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni:
“I and Italy never beg.”
The words felt strangely familiar.
Half a century earlier, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had expressed a remarkably similar instinct in a different language and under different circumstances.
Different continent.
Different century.
Different politics.
Yet the same emotional grammar.
National dignity.
The refusal to bow.
The insistence that self-respect matters.
As I reflected upon Bhutto and Meloni, another memory surfaced from my own writing desk.
In February 2026, I published an op-ed under the deliberately provocative headline:
“TRUMP – IS THIS GUY MAD OR WHAT?”
Let me clarify something.
I was not asking that question about the office of the President of the United States.
I was asking it about Mr. Donald J. Trump himself.
When I think of the American presidency, names begin to twinkle in my mind like distant stars: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt—figures who helped shape not only a nation but, at crucial moments, the course of history itself.
The question I was exploring then is the same question that returns tonight.
How does history distinguish between the unconventional, the controversial, the ambitious, the visionary and the truly great?
Contemporary politics rarely provides clear answers.
Time does.
And that brings us to a deeper question.
Why do some names survive after power disappears?
Why do some voices remain alive when offices, titles and flags fade away?
Perhaps because power impresses.
But dignity remains.
History remembers rulers.
It preserves very few leaders.
Consider Africa.
Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison and emerged without surrendering either dignity or hope.
Thomas Sankara spoke to a continent that was poor in wealth but rich in self-respect.
Patrice Lumumba became larger in memory than he ever was in office.
And today another African name increasingly appears in conversations far beyond his homeland.
Ibrahim Traoré.
History has not yet delivered its verdict upon him.
His story remains unfinished.
No honest observer can know how future generations will judge him.
Yet one fact is undeniable.
Millions of Africans see in him a reflection of their desire for dignity, independence and self-determination.
Whether history eventually crowns or criticises him is a question for tomorrow.
The important point is that people everywhere continue to hunger for leaders who stand upright.
That hunger exists in Africa.
It exists in Europe.
It exists in Asia.
It exists wherever ordinary people feel ignored, patronised or humiliated.
At this point another question naturally arises.
What does the Qur’an say about leadership?
Interestingly, the Qur’an rarely glorifies rulers.
Instead, it glorifies responsibility.
Allah says:
“And We made from among them leaders guiding by Our command when they were patient and had certainty in Our signs.”
(Surah As-Sajdah 32:24)
Notice the formula.
Patience.
Certainty.
Guidance.
Not wealth.
Not propaganda.
Not domination.
And Allah further declares:
“Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts to whom they are due.”
(Surah An-Nisa 4:58)
Leadership, then, is not ownership.
Leadership is trust.
An Amanah.
A responsibility.
Not a privilege.
Not a trophy.
Not a throne.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] deepened this concept when he said:
“Each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for his flock.”
(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 7138; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1829)
What a remarkable definition.
Not privilege.
Responsibility.
Not dominance.
Accountability.
A ruler seeks authority.
A politician seeks office.
A prophet seeks truth.
When the Quraysh offered Muhammad ﷺ wealth, status and compromise, he refused to abandon his mission.
He left behind no palace.
No mountain of gold.
No personal empire.
Instead, he left principles.
Justice.
Mercy.
Truthfulness.
Trustworthiness.
And that is why, fourteen centuries after his passing, his influence continues to shape lives across continents.
Power fades.
Principles endure.
Perhaps this is what the British statesman Winston Churchill meant when he observed:
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
Different age.
Different civilisation.
Yet the same truth.
Greatness is not measured by possession.
It is measured by responsibility.
Our own poetic tradition whispers a similar lesson:
How strange the insistence on colouring roads with blood.
Roads are meant for another purpose.
So that human beings may meet.
So that nations may meet.
So that civilisations may meet.
The evening at La Terrazza was drawing to a close.
The grandchildren had returned to their cities.
Paris.
Cairo.
Manhattan.
Copenhagen.
The serious questions had quietly retreated into the background.
Outside, Foxy waited patiently beneath the Islamabad night.
Families were leaving.
Waiters were clearing tables.
The city lights shimmered in the distance.
As I rose to leave, Bābā Tāl appeared one final time.
The tiny bells whispered softly in the night breeze.
He smiled and spoke only a single sentence.
“A throne makes a ruler. Only character makes a leader.”
Then he disappeared into the darkness.
The bells faded.
The sentence remained.
Perhaps that is the answer.
Real leadership is not measured by the size of an economy.
Nor by the strength of an army.
Nor by the length of time spent in office.
Real leadership begins when a person becomes willing to place principle above convenience.
A leader may win elections.
A leader may lose elections.
A leader may govern.
A leader may never hold office at all.
But every true leader possesses one quality that history recognises instantly.
Dignity.
That is why the words continue to echo across continents and generations.
From Africa to Europe.
From Larkana to Rome.
From forgotten villages to world capitals.
The language changes.
The accents change.
The flags change.
Yet the message remains remarkably familiar.
A nation may be poor.
A nation may struggle.
A nation may stand alone.
But a nation must never lose its self-respect.
For when dignity survives, hope survives.
And where hope survives, leadership is never far behind.
Also Read: DONALD TRUMP’S GREATEST VICTORY OR THE FIRST BRICK OUT OF THE WALL?
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