Muhajir

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Muhajir or Mohajir (Arabic: مهاجر) is an Arabic word meaning refugee or immigrant or emigrant. The Islamic calendar Hejira starts when Muhammad and his companions left Mecca for Medina in what is known as Hijra. They were called Muhajirun. The Arabic root word for immigration and emigration is Hijrat.

Over centuries, the term has been applied to a number of other Muslim refugee and emigrant groups.

• Muhajir Andalus, the Muslim refugees fled Andalus, Spain and Portugal, after Reconquista and Spanish Inquisition by Christans.
• Muhajir Khwarezm, the Muslim refugees that escaped Genghis Khan's Mongol invasion of Muslim lands in 13th century and they settled in other Muslim lands not touched by this calamity. Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi fled Afghanistan and settled in Anatolia (modern Turkey) to escape the Mongol army.
• Muhajir (Albania), Albanians that used to live in Serbia (near Nis and Prokuplje), and were violently displaced through the ethnic cleansing exercised by Serbian army in 1878. As a consequence, thousands of them settled in Kosovo where they live today.
• Muhajir Crimean, the Muslim refugees of Crimean ancestry, Crimean Tatars , that settled in Ottoman Empire after the Russian Empire conquered Muslim Crimean Khanate.
• Muhajir (Caucasus), the Muslim population of Caucasus resettled to Ottoman Empire and Middle East after the Caucasian War.
• Palestinian refugees are Palestinians that were displaced by Zionist occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948-1949.
• Muhajir (Turkey), the Muslims of Balkan ancestry that settled in Turkey after the collapse of Ottoman Empire.
• Muhajir (Pakistan), predominantly Urdu speaking Muslims refugees from India who settled in Pakistan after independence in 1947.
• Afghan refugees, Muslim muhajirs from Afghanistan who escaped the Soviet invasion in 1979 until the 2001 U.S. invasion in which the Taliban was removed.
• Rohingya refugees, also known as (Rohingyas), Muslim muhajirs from Rakhine State (formerly Arakan) in Myanmar (formerly Burma) who fled persucution and human rights violations under the Myanmar junta since 1978, and many have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result.