Muhajir (Turkey)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Muhacir (sometimes maacir in colloquial Turkish) is a term of Arabic origin (مهاجر, Muhajir or Mohajir) in Turkish language, used across ethnicities, and that corresponds to people whose ancestors migrated from formerly Muslim territories (Dar al-Islam in Islamic terminology), considered lost to the non-Muslims (Dar al-harb): the Balkans (Turks, Pomaks, Gajals, Albanians, Bosniaks), Caucasus (Abkhazians, Ajarians, 'Circassians', Chechens), Crimea (Crimean Tatar diaspora), Crete (Cretan Turks) or Africa (Sudanese Mahdists, Algerian partisans of Emir Abdelkader, Senussi insurgents from Libya).
After the end of Ottoman rule (especially after 1878 and 1912), a large portion of the Muslim populations of these geographies took refuge in Turkey.
Today, the word, having lost its original meaning ("an immigrant"), often refers specifically to someone who has Balkan ancestry, still employed regardless of ethnicity. Kemal Atatürk was born in Salonica and he was technically a muhajir from the Balkans.
