Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Geneive Abdo, No God but God: Egypt 

and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford and New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2000); Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha’s 

Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army, and the Making of Modern 

Egypt (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1997); Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: 

Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University 

of California Press, 2002).

K  212  

Egypt

---

Eid

  See 

holidays

; i

d

 

al

-a

dha

; i

d

 

al

-f

itr

.

Emigrants

 

(Arabic: 

muhajirun)

The emigration, or h

iJra

, of m

Uhammad

 and his 

first followers from m

ecca

 to m

edina

 is consid-

ered to be the foundational event in the history 

of the early Muslim community. Beginning in 622 

and continuing until the conquest of Mecca in 

630, small groups of supporters, men and 

Women

alike, abandoned their old homes to escape per-

secution and took up residence in Medina (then 

known as Yathrib). These people are remembered 

in Islamic tradition as the Emigrants. They were 

converts from different tribes and classes in Mecca 

and tribes outside Mecca who joined Muhammad 

in Medina. Aside from members of Muhammad’s 

immediate family, the Emigrants also included his 

cousin and son-in-law a

li

 

ibn

 a

bi

 t

alib

 (d. 661) 

and the other men who would become the first 

caliphs after Muhammad’s death—a

bU

  b

akr

 (d. 

634),  U

mar

 

ibn

 

al

-k

hattab

 (d. 644), and U

th

-

man

 

ibn

  a

FFan

 (d. 656). According to early his-

torical sources, not every Emigrant was of Arabian 

descent; one was b

ilal

, a former slave from Ethio-

pia, and another was Salman, a Persian convert. 

It is estimated that the total number of Emigrants 

was less than 400.

Together with the a

nsar

 (helpers), Arab con-

verts to Islam from Medina, the Emigrants held a 

place of honor in early Islamic society. Muham-

mad formed a brotherhood between them when 

they first arrived in Medina, and he soon con-

cluded a series of agreements with other Arab and 

Jewish groups that ensured that the Emigrants 

would enjoy protection and solidarity in their 

new home. They participated in the early battles 

against Muhammad’s opponents in Mecca and 

Medina and were given priority in the distribu-

tion of the booty. Both the Emigrants and the 

Ansar would later be remembered for the roles 

they played in collecting, reciting, and comment-

ing on the q

Uran

. They also played an important 

role in the transmission of the 

hadith

. Although 

the status of the Emigrants remained high after 

Muhammad’s death, their political influence in 

the community shifted to leaders of the q

Uraysh

tribe in Mecca, who had once led the opposition 

against Muhammad. Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) relied 

on the Quraysh, who had converted to Islam after 

630, for support in his claim to become the first 

caliph

 and for assistance in keeping the commu-

nity unified. This laid the basis for the eventual 

rise of the U

mayyad

 c

aliphate

, which was led by 

descendants from the Banu Umayya, a leading 

Quraysh clan.

In the 20th century, other Muslims would be 

called Emigrants. These included those who moved 

to Turkey from Russia and southeastern Europe to 

avoid being ruled by non-Muslim governments, as 

well as Indian Muslims who moved to p

akistan

 as 

a result of the 1947 partition of i

ndia

.

See also 

caliphate

;  c

ompanions

 

oF

 

the

p

rophet

.