Muhajir

Muhajir or Mohajir (Arabic: مهاجر‎ muhāǧir) is an Arabic word meaning immigrant.^[1] 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:

• Ahmad al-Muhajir, an Imam Mujtahid and the progenitor of Ba 'Alawi sada group who migrated from Iraq to Yemen to avoid tribulation in Abbasids
• Muhajir Khwarezm, the Muslim refugees that escaped Genghis Khan's Mongol invasion of Muslim lands in the 13th century; they settled in other Muslim lands not touched by the conquerors. Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi fled Afghanistan and settled in Anatolia (modern Turkey) to escape the Mongol army
• Morisco refugees, North African settlers and local converts expelled from Spain to North Africa
• Muhajir (Albania), Albanians that used to live in Serbia (near Nis and Prokuplje). Approximately 30,000 ethnic Albanians retreated from the captured areas (partly under duress), seeking refuge in Kosovo and Metohia.
• Muhajir Crimean, the converted Muslim refugees of Crimean ancestry, Crimean Tatars, that settled in Ottoman Empire after the Russian Empire captured the Crimea from the Muslim Crimean Khanate.
• Muhajir (Caucasus), the Muslim population of Caucasus resettled in Ottoman Empire, Persia and the wider Middle East after the Caucasian War. Their descendants make up much of the Circassian diaspora
• Muhajir (Turkey), the Muslims of Balkan ancestry that settled in Turkey after the collapse of Ottoman Empire
• Muhajir people (Pakistan), descendants of Muslim immigrants from India and other parts of South Asia who migrated to present-day Pakistan following the Partition of India
• Palestinian refugees, mostly Muslims from Mandatory Palestine, whose descendants live in countries bordering Israel (some live in Palestinian refugee camps)
• Sahrawi refugees, Muslims from Western Sahara living mostly in Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria (some live in the Free Zone)
• Afghan refugees, Muslims from Afghanistan who escaped the Soviet invasion and subsequent armed conflict. The vast majority of them settled in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran
• Kurdish refugees, mostly Muslims from Kurdish areas of the Middle East (Kurdistan)
• Rohingya refugees, Muslims from Burma in Bangladesh and Pakistan
• Chechen refugees, fleeing armed conflict in Chechnya, living mostly in Moscow and Istanbul

See also

• Exodus (disambiguation)
• Jewish refugees
• Christian emigration

References

Notes

• Lane, Edward William (1801–1876). [1956] Arabic-English lexicon. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing. (Originally published in London, 1863–1893)

Look up muhajir or مهاجر in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.