The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

hijra

The Arabic term hijra, Latinized as hegira, refers primarily to the Prophet Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622 (the Hijra) and secondarily to an Islamic doctrinal obligation (hijra).

Establishment of the Community

When Muhammad began to preach publicly in about 613, he encountered strong opposition from Mecca’s ruling tribe, the Quraysh. Although the earliest Muslims were few in number, they represented a challenge to the prevailing order; Arab identity was rooted in kinship rather than religion, and Mecca’s prosperity was linked to its polytheist shrines. In 615, Muhammad responded to mounting persecution of Muslims by sending a group of his followers to seek refuge in Christian Abyssinia. The Prophet remained in Mecca but began to seek a more hospitable base of operations in 619 after the deaths of his wife Khadija and his uncle and primary guarantor of protection, Abu Talib.

In 620, Muhammad gained several converts from Yathrib, the agricultural oasis north of Mecca that would later be known as Medina. The following year, 12 representatives from Medina’s two feuding tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, converted to Islam and swore allegiance to Muhammad. In 622, over 70 members of Medina’s Arab clans negotiated with Muhammad, pledging to protect him and his followers if he settled in Medina; this is known as the Pledge of War (bay‘at al-ḥarb). That year, Muhammad sent most of his followers ahead to Medina in small groups. He and his Companion Abu Bakr (ca. 573–634) made the journey together in secret, arriving in Medina in September 622.

This emigration, the hijra, is one of the most significant events in early Islamic history. The event marks the establishment of the Muslim community (umma) as an autonomous religious and political entity, with Muhammad as both Prophet and political leader. The Islamic calendar dates from the beginning of the lunar year in which the hijra took place, and Islamic dates are indicated by “AH” (Anno Hegirae, in the year of the hijra).

Those Muslims who left Mecca for Medina are known as the muhājirūn, or emigrants, while the earliest Medinan converts who aided the community’s establishment are known as the anṣār, or helpers. Although hijra is often translated as “flight,” the Arabic root h-j-r primarily signifies a severing of friendly relations, withdrawal, or emigration. For many of the muhājirūn, emigration meant relinquishing their property, livelihoods, and association with polytheist friends and family; Muslims were expected to make a complete break with Mecca’s jāhiliyya (pre-Islamic, “ignorant”) society.

The Obligation to Emigrate

After the hijra, emigration became an essential Islamic obligation for all but the most vulnerable Meccan Muslims. By joining the Prophet in Medina, these emigrants strengthened the nascent Islamic polity, weakened polytheist Mecca, resolutely affirmed their faith, and refused persecution. Those who failed to migrate compromised their religious commitment and risked aiding Meccan enemies. Several Qur’anic injunctions address hijra, and two of these passages are frequently cited in legal discussions of this obligation. Qur’an 4:97–100 warns of divine punishment for those who suffer oppression rather than emigrate, unless they are truly too weak to do so, and promises both worldly refuge and divine rewards for those who emigrate. Qur’an 8:72 designates believers who emigrate and fight (perform jihad) in the path of God, along with those who offer them aid, as the allies and protectors of each other; these allies are not obligated to protect nonemigrant believers until they too perform hijra. These verses are interpreted as referring to the muhājirūn, the anṣār, and the state of enmity between Medina and Mecca that made the continued presence of Muslims in Mecca problematic. Although Bedouin converts to Islam were permitted to remain with their tribes, Meccan Muslims who failed to emigrate were initially disinherited from their emigrant relatives.

Medina’s Muslims conquered Mecca in 630, after which hijra out of that city ceased to be obligatory. According to an oft-cited hadith, Muhammad declared there to be no hijra after the fatḥ, taken to mean the conquest of Mecca. However, other hadiths characterize emigration as an obligation that will continue until the Day of Judgment or as long as infidels are fought. Later Muslim jurists reconciled these traditions by concluding that although the obligation to emigrate to Medina lapsed in 630, hijra from dār al-ḥarb (the abode of war, non-Muslim territory) to dār al-islām (the abode of Islam; Muslim territory) remained obligatory.

Early Islam

During the first Islamic century, the significance of hijra shifted in two ways. First, the connection between hijra and jihad was strengthened as the expanding Islamic state conscripted Arab soldiers willing to emigrate to garrison towns in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. These soldiers, often referred to as muhājirūn, fulfilled the communal religious duty of jihad through the defense and expansion of dār al-islām.

Second, hijra began to play a role in sectarian disputes. The Kharijis (or khawārij), which formed under ‘Ali b. Abi Talib (r. 656–61) and became a prominent opposition group in the Umayyad period (661–750), considered all other Muslims to be infidels and their territory to be dār al-kufr, the land of unbelief. Members were required to perform hijra to Khariji camps in order to conduct jihad against the caliphate.

Later Interpretations

Interpretations of hijra in the medieval through contemporary periods have also reinforced religiopolitical divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims as well as among Muslims. Following the reconquest of Spain, jurists required Spanish Muslims who found themselves under Christian rule to emigrate to dār al-islām. Leaders resisting colonial rule in French Algeria and British India similarly declared these territories dār al-ḥarb and urged hijra as a means of weakening foreign control.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, several West African jihadist leaders, most notably Usman dan Fodio (1754–1817), paired hijra with jihad in the service of their reformist campaigns against nominally Muslim rulers. The Khariji pattern of takfīr (declaring Muslims to be infidels) and hijra in preparation for jihad against illegitimate rulers has also been reformulated by several Islamist movements, particularly in Egypt. One such group that arose in the 1970s was referred to by outsiders as al-Takfir wa-l-Hijra (Excommunication and Withdrawal) for its violent condemnation of Egyptian society as a new jāhiliyya.

The obligation to emigrate from non-Muslim to Muslim territory has also been the subject of renewed debate in the 20th and 21st centuries, as an increasing number of Muslims has settled or converted to Islam in the West and other regions with non-Muslim majorities. There is a wide spectrum of Islamic scholarly opinions, ranging from prohibition to obligation, regarding citizenship in non-Muslim countries and hijra in pursuit of work, education, religious freedom, or other goals.