Gen-Z Students' Perceptions of Kafaah Maliyah: A Maslahah Mursalah Analysis Based on Wahbah Zuhaili

Abstract

Kafaah maliyah denotes the concept of financial compatibility between prospective spouses, regarded as important for building a harmonious household. Among Generation Z students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Surabaya, intensive social media exposure to affluent lifestyles and narratives such as "don't marry until established" risks shifting spouse-selection standards toward materialism, making this phenomenon worth examining through Wahbah Zuhaili's perspective of maslahah mursalah. This study aims to describe Gen-Z UMSurabaya students' views on kafaah maliyah and to analyze them through Wahbah Zuhaili's maslahah mursalah framework. The research employed a qualitative normative-empirical descriptive method, combining thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 90 purposively sampled informants across nine faculties (10 per faculty) with normative cross-referencing of their statements against classical fiqh texts, hadith, and Wahbah Zuhaili's maslahah mursalah criteria. Findings show that 82.22 percent of respondents (74 of 90, Category A) regard economic readiness as a supportive form of ikhtiyat, consistent with maslahah mursalah muktabarah since they still prioritize religion. 14.44 percent (13 respondents, Category B) began shifting economic considerations toward a primary requirement, risking maslahah mulghah, while 3.33 percent (3 respondents, Category C) explicitly treated wealth as an absolute condition contradicting maqasid al-syariah. These findings extend existing discussions of kafaah maliyah by showing that Gen-Z respondents increasingly redefine it as financial readiness and shared responsibility rather than wealth equality, offering an empirically grounded, generation-specific reading of Wahbah Zuhaili's theory. Given that weaker prioritization of religious values coincided with stronger material orientation among Category B and C respondents, the study indicates that strengthening religious literacy may serve as a protective factor against digitally mediated material pressures.