Beyond Panic Buying: Household Economic Resilience through Maslahah during Fuel Shortages

Abstract

Fuel shortages do not always originate from declining supply but are often produced through consumers' own purchasing behaviour. Although the literature on panic buying has extensively examined the factors underlying this behaviour, its implications for household economic resilience and its normative evaluation from the perspective of maṣlaḥah remain underexplored. This study aims to analyse how panic buying and rational buying shape household economic resilience and to evaluate these behaviours through the lens of maṣlaḥah. The study employs a qualitative exploratory design based on library research, using thematic analysis of relevant scholarly literature. The findings reveal that panic buying is a multidimensional phenomenon that exacerbates household economic vulnerability, whereas rational buying functions as an adaptive strategy that strengthens expenditure stability, adaptive capacity, and livelihood sustainability. Furthermore, household economic resilience emerges through the interaction of economic pressure, livelihood disruption, and households' adaptive capacity. From the perspective of maṣlaḥah, consumption behaviour should be assessed not only in terms of economic rationality but also by its capacity to protect wealth (ḥifẓ al-māl), promote the public good (maṣlaḥah 'āmmah), and prevent harm (mafsadah). This study contributes to the literature on household economic resilience by repositioning maṣlaḥah as an analytical framework for evaluating consumption behaviour in times of economic crisis.