The Viability of Islamic Estate Planning in Malaysian Muslim Market: A Bibliometric Analysis Indexed by Scopus from 2015 to 2021

- The growing number of published articles indexed in a database such as Scopus suggests the increasing number of high-quality research and current interests that are relevant to a particular discourse. However, bibliometric studies identified that the pattern of journal articles published on Islamic estate planning in relation to Malaysian Muslim market in the Scopus database are still limited and given less attention. Therefore, this study seeks to identify the pattern of the published articles that have been indexed by Scopus specifically on Islamic estate planning instruments such as waqf, takaful, Islamic inheritance ( farāid ), gifts, trust, and will. This article is based on bibliometric analysis and focuses on all Islamic estate planning instruments in Islam. The data obtained from the Scopus database are then analysed thematically using ATLAS.ti 8 and VOSviewer software. The bibliometric analysis found 397 publications from Malaysia, which encompass articles, proceedings, book chapters, and book series. Nonetheless, there are only 324 relevant articles that had been analysed to establish the theme of the study. Meanwhile, the waqf instrument has become the most popular topic debated among researchers from Malaysia. All the articles are obtained from the Scopus database only by using keywords related to the instruments of Islamic estate planning. This study only focuses on Malaysian affiliates for 7 years, from 2015 to 2021. Therefore, more studies need to be done with any other indexing and high-quality research databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and related Islamic estate planning and marketing articles to achieve a better and more comprehensive analysis of research publications. In conclusion, this study provides a better information thematically through the frequency of publication by instruments, frequency of publication year, number of authors, language, publication format, list of journals, affiliation


INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, Islamic finance industry and market, particularly in Malaysia, has grown over the years and became a central global attention. Nevertheless, Islamic wealth management as a subset of the Islamic finance seems to be excluded, particularly on Islamic estate planning area. This can also be seen throughout the bibliometric Islamic finance literature from the Web of science (WoS) database ranging from 1939 to 2019, whereby only few most frequent keywords used in the publication referred to Islamic wealth management and estate planning field such as waqf and takaful (Tijjani et al., 2020).The Islamic Wealth Management has also been characterized as underserved until now. According to the Islamic Wealth Management Report 2021 (Islamic Finance & Islamic Wealth Management 2021, the Islamic wealth management is regarded to remain at a nascent stage of development and its market is estimated to be small compared to the global wealth market and growing private wealth in the Muslim majority countries in Middle East and Northern African (MENA) and Asia. Thus, this recent report indirectly reinforces a view of the Islamic estate planning field is believed to be left behind in the global market.
Besides, estate planning is still uncommon for Muslim consumer particularly in Malaysia. This is due to the fact that the Malaysian Muslim community in general still does not possess the right instruments to help them resolve the rising number of unsolved cases of distribution of Muslim's wealth. On the other hand, there are important factors that have been recognised by recent studies that would help the relevant authorities to take action and increase the tendency of Malaysian Muslims to participate in Islamic estate planning which include the advantages of Islamic estate planning, the religiosity factor and the respondents' altruistic nature towards their offspring (Abd Wahab et al., 2021).
Despite this circumstance, it does not negate the importance of the Islamic estate planning in advocating the concept of social responsibility and self-accountability especially when it comes to wealth distribution phase. It does not simply fulfil the Muslim's demand as a consumer in this world but also help them to practise Islam earnestly in terms of balancing each of Muslim personal financial and social goal in this worldly life to the next life. This is because the Islamic estate planning is regarded as a process related to the deceased's properties that involves accumulating the properties, settling debts and balances in accordance to the Inheritance law before being distributed to the rightful heirs (Abd. Wahab et al., 2021). There are numerous instruments of Islamic estate planning outlined by the Islamic law like waqf, takaful, Islamic inheritance, gifts, trust, and will. All the instruments mentioned have specific criteria and processes used to help in settling any issues related to Islamic estate planning.
In fact, the Islamic estate planning is also identified as an important Islamic feature that distinguishes the identity of the Islamic financial planning from its conventional (Billah & Saiti, 2017). Cultivating the Islamic values in everyday practices particularly in the administration of wealth management as part of Muslim demands in terms of managing, distributing wealth wisely and fulfilling the family's needs after the deceased death is very pertinent (Ozlem, 2011). This importance obviously has relation to Islamic marketing which was identified and defined by Muslim Traditional scholars like Ibn Abu Yusuf, Ibn Taimiyyah, and Ibn Khaldun as "the creation, development, and delivery of unique customer-satisfying, competitive products and services offered at a profit to organisations and d customers in light of Islamic teachings" (Billah & Saiti, 2017). Therefore, addressing the targeted Muslim consumers' global demand and looking over the Muslim marketplace where the practice of Islamic values would contribute to the advancement of this Islamic estate planning field.
It is important to note that currently the contemporary world is witnessing rapid Muslim population growth and expansion among the wealthy individuals and families in the Muslim majority countries across the globe (Abuznaid, 2012). This positive development constitutes Muslim a significant market which render the Islamic estate planning industry as scholarly and practically attractive field especially in Malaysia which constituted more than 61.3 percent of Muslim peoples as majority (Population Distribution And Basic Characteristics Report 2010, 2010 . On top of that, it also represents a major growth opportunity for Shariah-compliant Islamic estate planning products to be more developed than before through the Muslim consumer demands and supply. Besides, there are many research grants provided by the government, statutory bodies, private companies, universities, industries, shareholders, and Islamic Religious Council to conduct research on the instruments mentioned. Consequently, this situation has influenced the pattern of academic publication especially in Public Higher Learning Institutions (IPTA) with research status as it is among the elements used to measure the research output (Sharuddin et al., 2016). The variety of findings from the research become the solutions to the issues studied and even become the benchmark to academic achievement, H-Index measurement, and university rating factors globally (Osman & Yusoff, 2020).
Furthermore, it is important to note that there are numerous databases which are used to index academic publications to determine the publication quality of academic research conducted internationally. For instance, My Jurnal, Dimension, Google Scholar, Sciencedirect, Proquest, Ebscho, Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and many more. Among all the databases stated, Scopus is the largest multidisciplinary citation index database published by Elsevier that has now indexed more than 240 disciplines of knowledge in various languages (Scopus Website, 2022). For that reason, in 2007 Scopus was chosen by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Top University to provide the world's leading rating to be published in Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) (Osman & Yusoff, 2020).
To date, a plethora of studies have been done on this field by researchers in Malaysia mainly as it involves the Muslims' properties (Awang et al., 2022;Ayub et al., 2020;Cizakca, 2015;Hassan et al., 2018;Mohamed Nor & Yaakub, 2017;Muhamad et al., 2019;Sanusi, Yaacob, & Salleh, 2021;Shith et al., 2016). The quite number of the writings depict that the issues on Islamic estate planning have always been given attention by researchers. The growing number of published articles indexed in a database such as Scopus suggests the increasing number of high-quality research and current interests that are relevant to a particular discourse. As of March 2022, Scopus has 1.8 billion cited references dating back to 1970. From that number, Scopus has recorded about 70 thousand publishers, 26 thousand active serial titles, 243.4 thousand books, 17.5 million open access items, 84 million records, 17.6 million author profiles, and 94.8 thousand affiliation profiles (Scopus Website, 2022).  In addition, the Scopus database also provides detailed bibliometric information and extensive trend analysis. Based on this factor, Scopus has become a very popular database among higher learning institutions worldwide, including Malaysia. Therefore, this research is conducted to identify the pattern of published articles indexed by Scopus, significantly the articles that involve Islamic estate instruments such as waqf, takaful, Islamic inheritance, gifts, trust, and will. Through the bibliometric information provided, the theme of the research like the frequency of publication by instruments, frequency of publication year, number of authors, language, publication format, list of journals and publication types, affiliation, and types of collaboration will be analysed.

LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Rusydiana et al. (2021), the bibliometric method is defined as a mathematical and statistical determination method through the usage of documents and the patterns of a particular publication. A bibliometric study is an analysis in descriptive form. The main subject of the study is on the results of academic articles produced. The result of the study can identify and evaluate the impact of the research on the individuals, groups, or institutions in helping researchers to contribute something new in the field of knowledge (Ahmad et al., 2016).
The bibliometric method is widespread in Malaysia and is used in various academic disciplines. To illustrate, there are studies conducted by: Abdul Hamid and Hussin (2020) on researchers' publications patterns such as a bibliometric analysis of the publications by Joni Tamkin Bin Borhan in economics and a bibliometric analysis of the publications by Professor M. Kabir Hassan in Islamic Finance (Mukit et al,. 2021). Next is a bibliometric analysis in the economic field such as a study by Farajnezhad and Ramakrishnan (2020), bibliometric in the technology field that involves the internet of things ( More specifically, in the literature of Islamic estate planning field, there are several studies in the bibliometric method by authors in Malaysia identified, as stated in Table 1. The data analysed involved several variables such as year of publication, number of authors, article subject area, journal name and country, and type of research method.    Based on the literature reviews as stated in Table 1 above, the focus of the study encompasses instruments like Islamic inheritance, will, Islamic entrustment, gifts, and waqf. This has proven that the Islamic estate planning instruments are still relevant to be studied. However, based on the authors' observation, bibliometric studies focussing on takaful and trust instruments are still lacking. Instead of focusing on differences, future research also needs to pay attention on these two instruments because it is just as important as other instruments that support the holistic function of Islamic wealth management which combines wealth accumulation, wealth protection, investment and social welfare of the community (Ismail et al., 2020) . Furthermore, from the available literature review studies, it has been found that studies relating to bibliometrics particularly in Islamic estate planning and its relationship to Islamic marketing are very scarce. This is because according to the latest bibliometric analysis of Islamic marketing studies (Mubarrok et al., 2022), Islamic marketing itself is still regarded as a new discipline which has not been extensively explored and it is always discovered to be related to Islamic economics and finance (Ahmed & Salleh, 2016). Likewise, the Islamic estate planning has been discovered to be so much related to one segment of the Islamic finance and banking as it is always associated with the wealth management concept that comprises the last wealth distribution stage (Rahman & Hassan, 2020). It is important to note that, there are only two qualitative studies which directly incorporate the idea of Islamic marketing in the administration of the Islamic wealth management(refer to Table 2). The data collected have been analysed separately from the previous table as the studies employed different methodological and approach.

METHODOLOGY
This article is based on a bibliometric analysis which focuses on all Islamic estate planning instruments in Islam such as waqf, takaful, Islamic inheritance, gift, trust, and will. In addition, article searches only focus on affiliations from Malaysia. To obtain the maximum number of articles required from 2015 to 2021, the following keywords are used in the Scopus database: "Islamic estate planning" OR "Islamic wealth distribution" OR "Islamic wealth planning" OR "estate administration" OR "Islamic entrustment" OR "wasiyyah" OR "wisayah" OR "wisoyah" OR "faraid inheritance" OR "faraid" OR "hibah" OR "inter vivos" OR "hibah amanah" OR "hibah trust" OR "takaful" OR "waqf" OR "trust".
The findings obtained from the Scopus database are as follows: Based on Figure 2 above, a total of 397 documents were obtained. The focus of the study was only on academic publications in the form of journal articles. Hence, 46 documents were removed, including 15 conference proceedings, 24 book chapters, and 7 book series. The scanning results obtained were 354 articles, but a total of 30 articles were removed because they did not directly achieve the objectives of the study. Finally, only 324 articles were obtained, and each variable was analysed descriptively using ATLAS.ti 8 and VOSviewer software.
In addition, the keyword search through ATLAS.ti 8 software on the 324 articles also found the frequency of the words "waqf", "takaful", "Islamic", "insurance" and "Malaysia" as in Figure 3 below. These additional steps were taken to obtain more comprehensive study results. There are 324 articles that were analysed from 2015 to 2021 related to Islamic estate planning. Based on Figure 4 above, the most discussed Islamic estate instrument involves the waqf instrument, which is 170 articles, followed by the takaful instrument which is 123 articles. In comparison, Islamic inheritance and gifts instruments recorded the same number of articles published which is 14 articles. This is followed by the trust instrument with only 2 articles, and the lowest is the will instrument which is 1 article. It can also be seen that the number of Scopus indexed articles published increased by 8.33% between 2015 and 2017. Then it fell by 3.09% between 2018 and 2020. However, it rose again by 2.16% in 2021. According to Figure 6, the number of authors with more than 3 is the highest, with 129 articles. While the second-highest number involves 3 authors with a total of 88 articles. This is followed in third place by only two authors with some 86 articles. While the lowest number observed is only 21 articles involving a single author. Moving on, through 324 articles published over these 7 years, the authors have identified 3 main research designs that have been used. The most widely used is the quantitative research design with 223 articles. The second is the qualitative research design with 86 articles. The last is the mixed-methods design with only 15 articles. Based on top 10 journals from Table 3   Referring to Table 4 above, Emerald Group Publishing Ltd recorded the most significant number of journals publishing articles from Malaysian authors with 16 journals. The second is Inderscience Publishers with 4 journals and the third is Brill Academic Publishers with 3 journals. In contrast, the rest of the publishers published only 1 to 2 journals. Derived from Table 5 above, 40 universities from Malaysia are identified with 421 author affiliations for each article produced. International Islamic University Malaysia recorded the highest number at 93 affiliates. In second place is Universiti Teknologi MARA with 48 affiliates of authors from Malaysia. While in third and fourth place are Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Utara Malaysia with 34 affiliates and 31 affiliates respectively. Next, the remaining list of affiliates from Malaysia is below 30 to 1 affiliation.

Figure 13: Types of Studies by Collaboration
According to Figure 10 above, 147 publications involving local university collaboration (same university) are the highest number recorded. While the second highest is local university collaboration (different universities) with 73 publications. Next, local university collaboration & abroad university recorded 68 publications and local university collaboration & industry/government agency showed 14 publications. Meanwhile, the lowest number of collaborations belongs to the local university collaboration, abroad university & industry/government agency with 1 publication. It is also noted that a single author did not do any collaboration with a total of 21 publications. Figure 14: Mapping of Countries' Co-authorships Figure 14 shows the mapping of countries' co-authorships. The minimum number of documents of a country is 1 and the results found are as many as 26 countries. Referring to the visualisation overlay above, Malaysia represents the highest cluster by collaborating with other countries with an average publication per year of 2018.17. In addition, Malaysia collaborates the most with Indonesia compared to other countries with the link strength 23.

Figure 15: Mapping of Countries' Bibliographic Coupling
Bibliographic coupling occurs when two studies cite the same third document. Referring to Figure  (15) above, there are 11 clusters recorded. The strongest collaborative link was found between Malaysia and Pakistan (2349) and the second is with Indonesia (1596). Lastly, as reported in Table 6 above, there are 14 industry/government Agencies involved in Scopus-indexed article publishing collaboration with 17 articles. The table shown also recorded that Malaysia has the highest number of collaborations with 10 publications. The International Shariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA) and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) recorded the highest number with 3 and 2 publications. While the remaining industry/government agency either in or outside the country each with 1 publication.

Discussion of Findings
The following are the conclusions of the study which were derived from an analysis of 324 Scopusindexed publications published between 2015 and 2021:Waqf instrument has become the most popular topic debated among researchers from Malaysia. On the other hand, will instruments receive less attention among researchers.The increase in the publication of studies involving Islamic estate instruments from 2015 to 2017 is significant with 8.33%. Although there was a decrease in the percentage of this field of study from 2018 to 2020 of 3.09%, but there was an increase again in 2021 of 2.16%. This proves that the Islamic estate planning study is still relevant in the Scopus database and given attention by researchers.The writing trend shows that researchers prefer to produce articles with more than 3 authors. This is proven as 129 publications have been produced jointly. Quantitative research is the most popular among researchers compared to other research designs. Most journals require the English language as the primary medium of instruction to be published internationally and this is evidenced by the total English publication of 316 articles. However, there are also 6 articles in Malay and 2 articles in Arabic published in relevant Scopus indexed journals. For instance, the journals that publish articles in Malay are Management Journal, Technology Journal, Al-Bayān-Journal of Qurʾān and Ḥadīth Studies, International Journal of Islamic Thought, and Journal of Al-Tamaddun. While journals that publish articles in Arabic are Al-Jāmi'ah: Journal of Islamic Studies and Global Journal Al-Thaqafah. Although the number of publications in these two languages is minimal, it indicates that both languages are also recognised in the academic world.
During the period of 7 years from 2015 to 2021, the Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research published by Emerald Group Publishing Ltd. is the most significant contributor to Scopus indexed articles in the Islamic estate planning area with 23 articles. 93 affiliations from International Islamic University Malaysia are involved in the article publication indexed by Scopus. This number is the highest in the group of 40 Universities in Malaysia. While the collaboration with 14 industry/government agencies and 20 abroad universities showed that the articles produced had a high impact, quality and originality.
Finally, all of 324 articles that were analysed in the Islamic estate planning area are not only focused on Social Sciences field alone. Based on the analysis conducted on the Scopus database and the original website of the journal, articles in the Islamic estate planning area were also published in the following fields: i. Multidisciplinary.

Theoretical Implications
Through the bibliometric analysis conducted on 324 articles during the 7 years, this study identified that the Malaysian Muslim market as a viable market segment that has a lot of potential for future growth and the advancement of the Islamic estate planning industry scholarly and practically. This study has explained in detail the pattern of publishing articles indexed by Scopus. They especially involved Islamic estate planning instruments such as waqf, takaful, Islamic inheritance, gift, trust, and will. This analysis can provide information and guidance to researchers at the university to address current Muslim consumer needs and demands towards Shariah compliant Islamic estate products.

Practical Implications
Despite the lack of effectiveness of estate planning among Muslim consumers mentioned above, due to the lack of awareness and knowledge (Abd. Wahab et al., 2021;Kamis & Abd. Wahab, 2022), the increasing number of publications proves that the Islamic estate planning is still relevant and has been given undivided attention by Malaysian local researchers (Abdullah et al., 2020). As the newest niche in the Islamic finance and banking industry, this field has a great potential to contribute to sustainable finance. Proactive solution and better understanding of Shariahcompliant finance structures and solutions are needed from the authorities such as government and market players to engage with the existing client, prospective clients and investors towards Shariah-compliant estate planning services and product. From Islamic marketing perspectives, the findings of this study surely help in generating solutions for researchers and marketers to engage with global Muslim consumers in terms of providing and advocating good life-enhancing services in planning and distributing wealth wisely from the high quality (Shah, Bhutto, & Azhar, 2021;Khan et al., 2022) and reliable sources like Scopus database. The study's objective will be more realistic and practical with the contextualities of Malaysian Muslim consumer. In fact, the study results can also be utilised by the target group and impact the community globally.
In addition, the study results show that the topic of discussion on Islamic estate planning during life is very significant in human life (Noordin et al., 2016;Abdul Shukor et al., 2019;Hassan, 2020;Asni & Sulong, 2020;Alma'amun et al., 2022). This coincides with the hadith of the Prophet SAW who encouraged people to plan their property during life: Ibn Umar (Allah be pleased with them) reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: It is the duty of a Muslim who has something which is to be given as a bequest not to have it for two nights without having his will written down regarding it.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this study provides an insightful bibliometric analysis and identified current interest of Islamic estate planning instruments with special reference to the Malaysian Muslim consumers context. From 324 articles above, it is limited to the articles that are obtained from the Scopus database by only incorporating certain keywords related to the instruments of Islamic estate planning which is a part of Islamic wealth management concept that includes waqf, takaful, Islamic inheritance, gifts, trust, and will. Furthermore, this study only focuses on Malaysian affiliates for 7 years, from 2015 to 2021. Therefore, more studies are needed to be done with any other indexing and high-quality research databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and related Islamic estate planning and marketing article journals in order to achieve a better and comprehensive analysis of research publications. To improve the quality of research in the field of Islamic estate planning and ensure that it remains relevant, the authors suggest several actions that can be taken for future research: Firstly, a broader exploration of the trust instruments and its effectiveness in Islamic estate planning research is needed . This is due to the fact that debate on trust instruments not only focuses on waqf and takaful instruments. The implementation of trust products particularly in trust companies in Malaysia such as Amanah Raya Berhad (ARB), Wasiyyah Shoppe Berhad, and as-Salihin Trustee Berhad should also be given attention. Further bibliographic analysis in Islamic estate planning area through the Web of Science (WoS) database can also be done to extend this study. Moreover, this study also suggests to further expand research networking and collaboration with industry representatives, government agencies, private sectors, and abroad universities. Large scale grants should be offered to encourage researchers to conduct high quality research. At the same time, the study results can be published, discussed in conferences, and made into modules. This is pertinent to produce more impactful studies which potentially would be able to resolve issues related to Islamic estate planning. In regard to the publication, most researchers in Malaysia publish articles in My Jurnal; a database developed by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia that aims to collect and index all Malaysian journals. Therefore, the responsible parties need to draw up a long-term plan to make the My Journal database equivalent to the Scopus database in the future. On the other hand, the journals whether in public or private universities, especially in the field of Social Sciences should strive to improve the quality of their journal publications until they are successfully indexed by Scopus. To achieve this, more seminars should also be organised to provide hands-on exposure to researchers to publish more Scopus indexed articles.