Elder Financial Abuse From Islamic Perspective: A Case Study

The aim of this paper is to explore experience of Malaysian elders on financial abuse within families from the perspective of Islam. Currently there is no uniformity in definition of financial exploitation of older persons. Commonly, World Health Organization defined it as ‘the illegal or improper use of an older person’s cash or other resources’. Evidence from Quran and Hadith has clearly described the demands from children for good treatment and highest respect to parents. This paper discussed the application of Quran and Sunnah through a case study to explore the understanding of financial abuse of older people by their own adult children. The study is a part of a qualitative study, conducted using phenomenology study design via an in-depth interview with the older adults who were purposively sampled through purposive and snowball approach. The NVivo 12 analysis software was used to analyse the thematic analysis. The paper concludes that Islamic perspective contributes to the understanding of the occurrences of financial abuse in families. It provides insight on why Islam encourages good family values in family institution and provides recommendations in practice to reduce the problem.