Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in 

Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven, 

Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Margot Badran and 

Miriam Cooke, eds., Opening the Gates: A Century of 

Arab Feminist Writing (London: Virago, 1990); Fadwa el 

Guindi, Veil (New York: Berg, 1999); Fatima Mernissi, 

The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of 

Women’s Rights in Islam (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wes-

ley, 1991).

Hijaz

  See m

ecca

; m

edina

; s

audi

 a

rabia

.

Hijra

 

(Arabic: emigration, abandonment; 

also spelled Hijrah, Hejira)

The theme of an epic journey from home into 

the world can be found in the myths and sacred 

histories of many cultures and religions. It occurs 

in the origin myths of Australian aborigines and 

the Indian tribes of the American Southwest. The 

Hebrew Bible narrates the journeys of the patri-

arch  a

braham

 from Mesopotamia to Canaan and 

e

gypt

 and the famous exodus of m

oses

 and the 

Israelites from slavery in Egypt to Sinai and then 

to the “land flowing with milk and honey”—the 

Holy Land. The exodus is remembered every year 

during the Jewish feast of Passover. The New 

Testament Gospels describe the journeys of J

esUs

in  p

alestine

, culminating with his Last Supper, 

crucifixion, and resurrection in J

erUsalem

. The 

book of Acts tells the story of how Paul and other 

apostles carried the Gospel throughout the Holy 

Land and then to Asia Minor and Greece. Among 

the Asian religions, one of most famous events 

in the life of the Buddha was his Great Going 

Forth—his abandonment of wealth, home, and 

family in search of enlightenment. The Islamic 

“exodus” or “great going forth” is the Hijra, the 

emigration of m

Uhammad

 and about 70 of his fel-

low Muslims from m

ecca

 to m

edina

 in 622. This 

event was considered so important that Muslims 

have designated it to be year one on their official 

lunar 

calendar

. The 15th century of the Hijra 

began in 1982.

The word hijra is Arabic for emigration or 

abandonment, but it was also given other mean-

ings in medieval Arabic dictionaries, including 

“forsaking one’s home or country and moving 

to another place.” English dictionaries often 

mistranslate  hijra as “flight.” That the journey 

of Muhammad and his followers was more of 

an emigration than a flight is supported by the 

details of the accounts about the event provided 

by Ibn Ishaq’s 

biography

 of the Prophet (mid-

eighth century) and other early Islamic historical 

sources. According to these accounts, as Muham-

mad gained more followers from different classes 

of Mecca’s society, he also attracted the atten-

tion of the city’s leading authorities, particularly 

dominant clans of the q

Uraysh

 tribe. They were 

angered by the Quran’s attacks on their polythe-

istic religion and worldly attachments, which 

K  298  

Hijaz

---

caused them to neglect widows, orphans, and 

the poor. Some were outraged by the prediction 

that those who did not believe in a

llah

 would 

be punished in the 

aFterliFe

 for their disbelief. 

The Quraysh tried to impose a boycott against 

Muhammad’s clan, the Banu Hashim, to cut them 

off from intermarriage with other Meccans and 

from the city’s commercial life. The boycott failed, 

but Muhammad’s safety was seriously threatened 

in 619 when his chief protectors died—his wife 

k

hadiJa

 and his uncle Abu Talib.

To secure the position of himself and his 

religious movement, Muhammad sought new 

alliances with tribes in nearby towns and soon 

completed one with the Aws and Khazraj tribes 

of Yathrib, an oasis town located about 275 

miles north of Mecca. In return for their con-

version to Islam and sheltering and protecting 

his followers, he agreed to serve as the town’s 

peacemaker, a role customarily assumed by holy 

men in Middle Eastern societies. Muhammad 

also sent one of his companions to Yathrib to 

teach the Quran and win more converts. The 

new Muslims of Yathrib were called the Helpers 

(a

nsar

). Meanwhile, persecution of Muham-

mad and his followers in Mecca by the Quraysh 

intensified; the weaker ones were physically 

tortured or imprisoned. Muhammad ordered his 

followers to emigrate to Yathrib in small groups, 

while he remained in Mecca with his friend a

bU

b

akr

 and his loyal cousin a

li

 

ibn

 a

bi

 t

alib

. The 

Quraysh plotted to murder Muhammad and 

invaded his house only to find Ali sleeping in 

his bed. Muhammad had secretly escaped with 

Abu Bakr, and the two of them hid in a cave for 

three days before making their way to Yathrib. 

After they arrived, Muhammad built the city’s 

first two 

mosqUe

s and established an agreement, 

also known as the Constitution of Medina, that 

called for mutual support among the Helpers, 

the  e

migrants

 from Mecca, the Jews, and non-

Muslim Arabs. The agreement also recognized 

Muhammad as the leading 

aUthority

 of the new 

community, the 

umma

. Thereafter Yathrib became 

known as Madinat al-Nabi (City of the Prophet), 

or simply Medina.

Muslim sources also speak of an earlier hijra of 

Muslims to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) between 615 and 

622. Muhammad may have sent some Muslims 

there to receive the protection of the country’s 

Christian king, the Negus. Some of them returned 

to Mecca before the Hijra to Medina, but most 

seem to have rejoined their coreligionists in 

Medina after 622.

The caliph U

mar

 

ibn

 

al

-k

hattab

 (r. 634–644) 

signaled the importance of the Hijra in Islam when 

he declared that it would be used to set the official 

Muslim calendar in 638. Its importance was also 

reflected in the division of the Quran into Meccan 

(pre-Hijra) and Medinan (post-Hijra) chapters. 

The Medina chapters contain most of the Quran’s 

ritual rules and social laws, which originally 

applied to the governance of the new community 

Muhammad had created after the Hijra. Most of 

the authentic 

hadith

 are thought to have started 

to circulate during this era. In Islamic law, the 

issue of emigration was debated by jurists when 

Muslims in a

ndalUsia

 and later other Muslim 

lands found themselves being ruled by non-Mus-

lims. Some jurists, especially those of the m

aliki

l

egal

 s

chool

, said that Muslims were obliged to 

emigrate to Muslim territories, as the Prophet had 

done. Others said that residence in non-Muslim 

lands was permissible as long as Muslims were 

allowed to fulfill their religious duties. In a similar 

vein, sectarian groups such as the k

haWariJ

 called 

for true Muslims to emigrate from territories ruled 

by corrupt Muslims.

The ideal of the Hijra has continued to be an 

important one for Muslims in more recent cen-

turies. Reform and revival movements in W

est

a

Frica

 and South Asia used it to organize oppo-

sition to colonial rule. a

bd

 

al

-a

ziz

 

ibn

  s

aUd

 (d. 

1953) established settlements called hijras in 

central Arabia, where b

edoUin

s were indoctri-

nated with Wahhabi teachings. When i

ndia

 and 

p

akistan

 were partitioned in 1947, the Muslim 

migration into Pakistan was called a hijra. More