Designing Istitha'ah: Hajj as Gen Z's Financial Architecture
A Gen Z individual might readily pay for skincare in instalments through a paylater app without much thought, yet postpone Hajj registration for up to five years. This small irony reveals a larger question: is the capability (istitha’ah) to perform Hajj something that arrives suddenly at the end of one’s life, or a capacity deliberately designed from an early stage?
Hajj is the only pillar of Islam that explicitly requires capability. Yet in economic reality, capability never arrives suddenly. It is built, planned, and prepared long before a person dons the ihram garments.
Amid early discussions of the 2027 Hajj Pilgrimage Cost (BPIH) and efforts to rationalise the Benefit Value managed by the Hajj Financial Management Agency (BPKH), a crucial question arises for the younger generation: is istitha’ah viewed as a passive fate to be awaited, or a capacity deliberately designed from the outset?
From a public financial governance perspective, the dynamics of BPIH are not merely state budget statistics. They are a large mirror reflecting how financial capability is built and sustained over the long term. However, there is an intriguing paradox in the current economic landscape.
On one hand, the macro Hajj discourse is coloured by issues of cost efficiency and the sustainability of managed funds. On the other, social media and economic reporting capture the financial vulnerability of Generation Z and the sandwich generation—those who bear the needs of themselves as well as their families.
The high usage of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) features, lifestyle inflation, and the double burden of supporting family mean long-term planning is often neglected. Kiki Retnaningrum and Srikandi Sundari (2025) affirm that the consumptive behaviour of BNPL users is strongly influenced by low financial literacy and attitudes.
The challenge for the younger generation is often not merely limited income, but the quality of financial management itself. In this context, the narrative that ‘Hajj is a matter for later in old age’ becomes a passive justification for the absence of effort from an early stage.
This view gains empirical confirmation from a marketing communication strategy study conducted by PT MarkPlus Indonesia for BPKH (January 2026). A majority of Gen Z (56 per cent) were recorded as only planning to register for Hajj more than five years in the future, and only 3.6 per cent planned to register within one year. As many as 50.6 per cent of Gen Z cited a continued focus on career and education development, followed by acquiring a house, vehicle, or business.
Such reasons are rational for the early phase of productive age. However, these findings simultaneously refute the stereotype that young people are reluctant to invest. As many as 46.1 per cent of Gen Z respondents actually chose investment instruments such as gold, sharia-compliant shares, and property to accumulate Hajj funds—exceeding the preference for ordinary bank savings.
It should be noted that, particularly for property, this instrument tends to be illiquid and has a very long horizon, so it is not always aligned with the need for gradual withdrawal to pay BPIH instalments. Gold and sharia-compliant shares are relatively more flexible for this purpose.
Gen Z possesses high investment awareness for wealth accumulation. Nevertheless, a phenomenon of mental decoupling occurs, namely a psychological separation between worldly investment portfolios and Hajj pilgrimage planning. Investment is seen as a means of achieving economic goals, while Hajj is placed as a residual agenda to be considered only when one’s condition is deemed ‘established’.
In fact, in a goal-based investing approach as presented by Meir Statman in Finance for Normal People (2017), effective investment is investment directed at specific life goals. Hajj should be positioned on a par with education funds, a first home, or retirement funds—not separated as a distinct category waiting its turn.