هجرة
Hijra
Emigration for the sake of faith, above all the Prophet’s move from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE.
What it means
After thirteen years of persecution in Mecca, the Prophet and his followers left for Medina in 622 CE. Under Umar the Islamic calendar was counted from this year. Hijra also means leaving what God forbids, as in the hadith “the emigrant is the one who abandons what God has forbidden” (Sahih al-Bukhari).
An earlier emigration, around 615, took a group of Muslims across the Red Sea to Abyssinia, where a Christian king, the Negus, gave them refuge.
Often misunderstood as
That the move was the start of a policy of conquest.
What the sources say
Ibn Ishaq relates that Ja’far ibn Abi Talib recited from chapter 19, on Mary, before the Negus, who wept and said that this and what Jesus brought came from the same lamp. The first Muslims were refugees from persecution who were sheltered by a Christian ruler. Medina’s early constitution, preserved in Ibn Ishaq’s biography, treats the Jews of the city as a community alongside the Muslims.