Caring for the Elderly: Western and Islamic Response

Abstract

Elderly is the inevitable stage of human life. Delicacy in this stage makes the aged persons dependent on others. Though elderly is a mark of respect in every culture, the problems faced by them are partly or mostly overlooked almost everywhere. With the advent of individualism as well as nuclear family system evolved primarily due to rapid industrialization and urbanization made the elderly problem more excruciating. The western world developed different institutional arrangement for dealing with newly evolved problems. As the problems of the aged people involve multidimensionality, the institutional approach proved not be proficient enough to meet all the aspects of their need in an optimum manner. On the other hand, Islam addresses this problem in a comprehensive manner through generating motivation as well as imposing obligation on others concerned. It is attempted in this article to make a general description of the west and Islam in their response towards the caring for the elderly.