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 refugees:

• 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
• Muhaxhir (Albanians), are Albanians that used to live in the Toplica/Morava regions (Sanjak of Niș) that became part of Serbia in 1878. An estimated 60-70,000 to as low as 30,000 ^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Albanians that were either expelled, fled and/or retreated from the captured areas, seeking refuge in Ottoman Kosovo.^[8][9]
• 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
• Muhacir (Turkey), the Muslims of Balkan ancestry that settled in Turkey prior, during and 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

1. Lane 1893
2. Pllana, Emin (1985). "Les raisons de la manière de l'exode des refugies albanais du territoire du sandjak de Nish a Kosove (1878–1878) [The reasons for the manner of the exodus of Albanian refugees from the territory of the Sanjak of Nish to Kosovo (1878–1878)] ". Studia Albanica. 1: 189-190.
3. Rizaj, Skënder (1981). "Nёnte Dokumente angleze mbi Lidhjen Shqiptare tё Prizrenit (1878–1880) [Nine English documents about the League of Prizren (1878-1880)]". Gjurmine Albanologjike (Seria e Shkencave Historike). 10: 198.
4. Şimşir, Bilal N, (1968). Rumeli’den Türk göçleri. Emigrations turques des Balkans [Turkish emigrations from the Balkans]. Vol I. Belgeler-Documents. p. 737.
5. Bataković, Dušan (1992). The Kosovo Chronicles. Plato.
6. Elsie, Robert (2010). Historical Dictionary of Kosovo. Scarecrow Press. p. XXXII. ISBN 9780333666128.
7. Stefanović, Djordje (2005). "Seeing the Albanians through Serbian eyes: The Inventors of the Tradition of Intolerance and their Critics, 1804-1939." European History Quarterly. 35. (3): 470.
8. Jagodić, Miloš (1998). The Emigration of Muslims from the New Serbian Regions 1877/1878. Balkanologie.
9. Müller, Dietmar (2009). "Orientalism and Nation: Jews and Muslims as Alterity in Southeastern Europe in the Age of Nation-States, 1878–1941." East Central Europe. 36. (1): 70. "For Serbia the war of 1878, where the Serbians fought side by side with Russian and Romanian troops against the Ottoman Empire, and the Berlin Congress were of central importance, as in the Romanian case. The beginning of a new quality of the Serbian-Albanian history of conflict was marked by the expulsion of Albanian Muslims from Niš Sandžak which was part and parcel of the fighting (Clewing 2000 : 45ff.; Jagodić 1998 ; Pllana 1985). Driving out the Albanians from the annexed territory, now called "New Serbia," was a result of collaboration between regular troops and guerrilla forces, and it was done in a manner which can be characterized as ethnic cleansing, since the victims were not only the combatants, but also virtually any civilian regardless of their attitude towards the Serbians (Müller 2005b). The majority of the refugees settled in neighboring Kosovo where they shed their bitter feelings on the local Serbs and ousted some of them from merchant positions, thereby enlarging the area of Serbian-Albanian conflict and intensifying it."

Notes

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