مهاجر
Muhājir
A person who moves from one place to another for the sake of Islam; the plural is muhājirūn.
What it means
Muhājir comes from the root of hijrah, to leave or migrate. It describes a person who leaves home for the sake of God and of Islam. In history the muhājirūn are the Meccans who migrated to Medina with Muhammad (peace be upon him), giving up their property and homes, and the Quran praises them together with the anṣār, the Medinans who received them (9:100). The word carries a moral meaning too. A hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari says that the muhājir is the one who abandons what God has forbidden. In modern use it is also the word for refugees and migrants in several Muslim languages.
Often misunderstood as
Translating it only as “emigrant” or “refugee” loses that the move is made for a religious reason and with a commitment to God.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 46, listed as MUHĀJIR. The definition is restated here.