Hijra

9 Key excerpts on "Hijra"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  The I.B. Tauris Handbook of Sociology and the Middle East

  • Fatma Müge Göçek, Gamze Evcimen, Fatma Müge Göçek, Gamze Evcimen(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  Diasporic conditions trigger the release of some Muslim idioms from their otherwise marginal status and pull them to the surface of the Muslim imagination. There are several prominent root-paradigms (Turner 1974: 67) that immigrant Muslims in America employ in making sense of their experience. These include Hijra (the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina), ummah (the universal Muslim community), dawah (mission or propagation of Islam), and jihad (struggle, just war). When the Prophet Muhammad and his followers were persecuted in Mecca, he migrated to the nearby city of Medina in the year 622 CE. This event occupies such a central place in the Muslim imagination that it marks the starting point of the Muslim calendar (called the Hijri calendar). Hijra, the movement from Mecca to Medina, is understood as a flight from chaos and oppression to a place of freedom that represents “the city” and “civilization” all at once. The Prophet’s Hijra thus constitutes the primary referent for the Muslim topos of Hijra, migration. There is also a second event from the early days of Islam that contributes to the term’s symbolic meaning: the migration of Muslim refugees to Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) in 615 CE. Hijra is the primary idiom for Muslim immigrants who seek to frame their displacement—voluntary or not—in religious terms. It is not only the movement from one place to another or departure from one’s native land that makes these historical events relevant to contemporary migrants, but also the fact that the destinations were in both cases non-Muslim. Thus, Hijra gained prominence among Muslims in the United States as a way of providing a framework for their contemporary experience as immigrants (Haddad and Lummis 1987: 156). African-American Muslims even interpret their experience of slavery with reference to Hijra and call Hijra “The Greatest Migration” (Dannin 2002)

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Golden Roads

  Migration, Pilgrimage and Travel in Medieval and Modern Islam

  • Ian Richard Netton(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  As the Qur’ ā n repeatedly asserts, the fate of the prophet of God in this world is to meet persecution from those he seeks to help. To escape persecution Mu ḥ ammad took refuge in Yathrib where, with the help of its citizens and allies, he founded the prototype of the ideal Islamic community. At the heart of this ideal community is the city, Mad ī nat al-Nab ī, regulated in all its affairs by divinely revealed law. The realisation of such a community is miraculous proof of divine omnipotence and divine intervention in human affairs. Corrupt, worldly communities with their false prophets, oppressive rulers and family cliques crumble in the face of manifest perfection. Actualisation of perfection at the centre through Hijra is followed by explosive expansion by means of da’wa and jih ā d in accordance with the universalism of the monotheist message. In addition to the literal sense of ‘emigration’, Hijra also implies insistence on a decisive repudiation of unbelief, and is associated with attempts to create an ideal Islamic polity modelled on that of Medina. For these reasons Hijra has been employed by a number of fundamentalist movements, including the Wahh ā b ī s of Najd, the Wahh ā b ī -inspired Nigerian reformers led by Uthman Dan Fodio, and the splinter group of the Muslim Brothers known to their detractors as the ‘Takf ī r wa ’l-Hijra’. Hijra also carries the connotation of a place of emigration or refuge. The related form hajar appears in several ancient and modern place names in Arabia, such as Hajar al-Ba ḥ rayn and Hajar Najr ā n. 1 Y ā q ū t relates that in the speech of the southern Arabs hajar meant a settlement (qarya). He suggests that this is derived from Hijra, meaning ‘a bedouin’s leaving the desert and settling in the towns’

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Body of Victim, Body of Warrior

  Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists

  • Cabeiri deBergh Robinson(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  It marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, because this Hijarat led to the formation of the first Muslim political community (the ummah ), which was comprised of the Meccan muhājirūn and their supporters in Medina (the ansār, or hosts). In addition, many hijarats occurred after the lifetime of the prophet Mohammad; while not a part of Islamic sacred history, they are important in the histories of specific Muslim communities. In the esoteric traditions, hijarat references a spiritual journey, like a believer’s interior jour-ney into the heart or a migration of the self to the divine. In many Qur’anic verses, use of the term indicates a transformation of the political relationship between family and tribe as well as a change of geographical location. The term jihād also has multiple meanings. 12 In diverse Muslim societ-ies, jihād is widely understood as a striving for moral perfection or spiritual 72 • Ch a p t er 2 salvation. For this reason, the ‘ulemah reject translating the term as “holy war.” There are also several other terms used to discuss the relationship between violence and politico-religious practices—these include internal dis-sent (fitna), fighting (qitāl), and war (mukātala). 13 Classical Islamic scholars attributed most of the Qur’anic references to jihād to the historical period in which the muhājirūn, supported by their Medinan hosts, organized a prolonged armed struggle against the Meccan tribes. Their success after eight years of war enabled the muhājirūn to return to the Meccan homeland.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe

  Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina

  • Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Stanford University Press

    (Publisher)

  7

  A number of hadith refer to Hijra as an obligation, while scholars in later centuries extrapolated on the specific conditions that make Hijra obligatory to Muslims. A hadith transmitted by Prophet Muhammad’s wife Aisha stated that “There is no Hijra after the liberation of Mecca,” (la Hijrata ba’d al fathi ). This hadith was most often cited to discourage the necessity of migration. The issue of Hijra, and when or whether Muslims are obliged to migrate, was judged differently depending on the circumstances and considering the actual viability of such a move.8 Whether it was the Muslim lands conquered by the Mongols, the Iberian Peninsula, Central Asia, India, or West Africa, scholars deliberated on the definitions of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb . The fundamental principle was that righteous existence was possible only within a system that upholds shariʿa and where life could be led under its guidance, defined as Dar al-Islam . However, scholars differed on what disqualifies such a setting, while the reality of Muslim existence in non-Muslim societies continued to challenge the rigid division of the world into two separate entities.9 After all, Prophet Muhammad sent a group of Muslims to emigrate to Christian Abyssinia, where they were allowed to practice their faith. The extensive debates continued among scholars and jurists over what circumstances define either domain, considering the social, political, economic, and practical aspects of Hijra. Overall, the jurists who adhered to the Hanafi and Shafi’i schools of jurisprudence maintained that as long as Muslims were able to practice their religion, even as a minority under non-Muslim rule, those regions remained Dar al-Islam .10

  Discussions on the issue of Hijra became more prominent in the nineteenth century when Muslims around the world became subjects of European colonial empires. At the start of the twentieth century, more Muslims lived in the Russian Empire than in the Ottoman Empire, while British India contained the largest Muslim population in the world at the time. European empires viewed their colonial subjects through a religious lens and worked to integrate Islamic structures into the colonial state. For Muslims it was more than the symbolism of a skewed shari’a that the French and British colonial administrations tried to display with the Droit musulman en Algérie and the Anglo-Muhammadan Law in their colonies.11 Despite different forms of colonial rule and the heterogeneity of the Muslim inhabited world, many colonized Muslims faced similar predicaments.12

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  With Respect to Sex

  Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India

  • Gayatri Reddy(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  Drawing on the histori-ography of the Deccan Sultanates as well as the subalternity of Islamic identification, this section explores the historical and symbolic implica-tions of Hijra positionality in contemporary India, arguing for its potential significance as a supralocal node in the wider cultural politics of Hindu nationalism. 6 “We Are All Musalmans Now” / 101 “all Hijras are musalmans”: practice and identity in the hyderabadi context gayatri: What does it mean when you say “I am a Musalman”? How do you know that you are a Musalman? munira: See, once you become a Hijra—I am talking about Lashkarwala Hijras— then you become a Musalman. [You] say salam aleikum when you meet other Hijras, wear a green sari for special occasions, do not wear a bindi , eat halal meat, have the khatna [circumcision], you say namaz , older people go on the Hajj. It is like that. That is why we say “now we are Musalmans.” Although South Asian Islamic beliefs and practices are pluralistic and het-erodox (Ewing 1988; Hassan 1997), at least theoretically, many Muslims and scholars believe one can start with any Islamic tenet or body of religious literature or ritual practice and be led unerringly to the same fundamental teachings of Islam (Metcalf 1984). “This cohesion and replication is one dimension of the unity that is the fundamental symbol of Islam,” Barbara Metcalf notes in the introduction to her edited volume on the concept of adab (discipline/training, or proper behavior) in South Asia (1984, 3). There are common moral expectations for all Muslims, whatever their class or oc-cupational position, and these expectations exemplify the moral qualities and behavior represented by the life of the Prophet Muhammad (Metcalf 1984).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Explorations in Economic Anthropology

  Key Issues and Critical Reflections

  • Deema Kaneff, Kirsten W. Endres(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Berghahn Books

    (Publisher)

  This is the original and also its main Yemeni meaning. The Yemeni term ‘Hijra’ not only refers to ‘asylum’ but also, in a broader sense, to any other protected status that is set apart from the rest (Puin 1984). 4 Within these sets of theological, legal and semantic meanings, the Ahl al-Bayt-led Zaydis had arranged with their tribal majority hosts that a 124 Andre Gingrich pattern of dispersed Hijra settlements could be maintained all over the main highland regions under respective tribal legal and armed protec-tion. Inside these Hijra settlements, Ahl al-Bayt families as well as Jewish and Muslim families of lower social status could live and professionally interact with each other as well as with their tribal environment. This pri-mary social and legal innovation also marks the threshold time when the Yemeni Zaydi Ahl al-Bayt became referred to as Masters or Lords (Sada) in local and regional terminology. Public recognition by locals of the Ahl al-Bayt’s superior social position and hegemony went hand in hand with a new terminology for tribal leaders, who previously had been addressed as ‘Sada’, but who now were increasingly referred to as Shaykh/Shuyukh, i.e. (tribal) headmen or chiefs (Heiss 2005). Since bride-giving designates a temporary or permanent position of social inferiority vis-à-vis bride-receivers all across South Arabia, these terminological transformations point at the beginnings of a new element in marriage patterns that has endured in Yemeni social history ever since. The old paramount chiefly tribal 5 families of the Yemeni highlands, as well as those of important subtribes, seem to have engaged since then in fairly recurrent patterns of hypergamous marriage with the Ahl al-Bayt.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Islam and the Infidels

  The Politics of Jihad, Da'wah, and Hijrah

  • David Bukay(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  (Futûhat) of the infidels’ territories.

  When Allah revealed the plot of the infidels to assassin Muhammad, being the best plotter,27 he gave him the permission to emigrate from Mecca.28 It was on September 16, 622, a date that marked an essential stage for the establishment of the Islamic Ummah. It was the command of Allāh, promising the Muslims victory and establishment on earth.29 As Muhammad succeeded in Medina, the Hijrah has become much more than a mere physical migration, but rather a cosmological transformation, an important factor in the process of consolidation and empowerment of the Islamic community.30

  For Islamic exegesis the Hijrah of Muhammad was the end of an era of weaknesses and misfortunes and marked a new beginning of success and victory. Therefore, religiously and consciously, it was so important that the decision of Umar to mark the Islamic calendar beginning from the year 622 was accepted without any objection, though it was Muhammad’s decision.31 The Hijrah, therefore, was a revolutionary strategy, a policy designed and structured for the betterment of Islam and to promote the progress of the entire humanity. Muhammad presented the Islamic ideals and values to mankind only after the Hijrah. It has become a model, a doctrine, and a strategy to be emulated by Muslim believers through history, a commandment every Muslim must also imitate and follow today. The entire world belongs to Allah alone, therefore it must be conquered, and Islam must subdue humanity, for its best interests.

  The Hijrah was for the sake of the religion of Allah and the establishment of the Islamic Ummah. It was aimed to spread the religion all over the world as an example and a model. Therefore, the Hijrah is considered to be a Jihad for the sake of religion. It was not just a human activity but an act ordained by Allāh, to establish his religion worldwide. With the Hijrah came the establishment of the new Muslim community, the Ummah, and with the Ummah came the need for new Islamic politics to rule over the world. The Muslim community must seek to obtain the superiority of the host country, and to act on all fields of politics, economy, and social life. All these are legally binding upon the Muslim Muhajirûn,

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Refugee Status in Islam

  Concepts of Protection in Islamic Tradition and International Law

  • Arafat Madi Shoukri(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  Many verses and ˛ adīths stress that God does not like oppressors: ‘God does not love oppressors’ (Q. 3:57). In the ˛ adīth Qudsī God says: ‘O My slaves, I have forbidden oppression for Myself and have made it forbidden amongst you, so do not oppress one another’ (Muslim, n.d., vol. 4, p. 1994). The migration to Medina When fi Umar Ibn al-Kha †† āb convened a meeting of the elite of the com-panions to decide upon a system of dating, according to one account, 8 some of the companions suggested the day of revelation should be the start point while others proposed the year of the Prophet’s death. Then fi Umar said: ‘Verily, we shall start dating from the [year] of the Prophet’s Hijra , as his Hijra was a severance between the truth and the falsehood’ (al-‡ abarī, n.d., vol. 2, p. 3). These words from the second Caliph sum up the absolute importance of the Hijra and its significant impact on the course of history. 34 Refugee Status in Islam The Hijra to Medina was not the first of its kind, as the Hijra to Abys-sinia preceded it by eight years. However, it was unique in the sense that it symbolized the start of the coming era, where Muslims established their own state for the first time in history, practised their religion without fear of persecution and spread Islam outwards. The atmosphere in Mecca before Hijra to Medina In this period, the torture and oppression of Muslims by the Quraysh continued, making the need for a safe haven a priority. Some Muslims sought refuge in Abyssinia, while others stayed in Mecca, for various rea-sons, despite the dreadful conditions there. The Prophet’s efforts to convert people to Islam, especially the elite of the Arab tribes, did not stop after the experience in al-‡ ā √ if. He exposed himself to various troubles in preaching to the tribes who came to per-form pilgrimage in Mecca. These tribes, in most cases, not only rejected his message but also harassed and mocked him.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Islam

  An Introduction

  • Catharina Raudvere(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  The last man Muhammad encounters is Abraham, ‘sitting on a throne at the gate of the immortal mansion’ (270), who takes him into Paradise. The deaths in 619 of Abu Talib, who had protected Muhammad, and his wife Khadija were two blows to his social position. Beside their personal support in accepting him as a prophet, they had both provided him with a strong social network. In 620, a peace agreement was made with representatives of Yatrib, known in Muslim history as Medina (literally ‘the City’). This town was quite different from Mecca. Medina had developed around an oasis and was a mixed settlement, with a substantial Jewish community, that had extensive trade connections. In this setting, Muhammad’s Fig. 3 Buraq, the animal on which Muhammad was transported to the heavens, according to the narratives about his Nightly Journey. (Source: Brooklyn Museum [public domain], via Wikimedia Commons) Islam: An Introduction 46 teachings functioned not only as eschatological warnings of the consequences of the broad road, but also a basis for long-term social cohesion. The vision of a different and just society was presented and was further emphasized after 622, when many adherents followed Muhammad to be part of the new community – known as the migration ( Hijra ) from Mecca to Medina. It is from this point that the umma , a community where claims of blood lineage were downplayed in favour of loyalty within the congregation, can be identified. AH – anno Hegirae The Islamic calendar starts with the migration ( Hijra ) to Medina in CE 622 and each year thereafter was sometimes in early Western literature on Islam labelled ‘anno Hegirae’ ( AH ) in its Latinized form, in analogy with the Christian concept anno Domini ( AD ). The Hijra calendar is used to mark all important Islamic events and to distinguish them from secular history and contemporary matters.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book