- author, Edison Weiga
- position, BBC News
image source, Getty Images
Religions always need stories about their origins.
For Islam, its starting point is the period of migration known as the Hijra, when the Prophet Muhammad (571 – 632) and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina. Both these cities are in present day Saudi Arabia.
Madinah is 500 km from Mecca. It took them 12 days to complete the journey.
By then, Prophet Muhammad had emerged as a respected religious leader among the people. People regarded him as the Messenger of Allah. Prophet Muhammad, who made many reforms in Judaism and Christianity, also came against polytheistic religions.
It caused many problems for Prophet Muhammad in his hometown.
Prophet Muhammad, who was a principled person, made an effort to visit the city at the invitation of the leaders of Medina.
Prophet Muhammad was over 50 years old at the time of migration. Likewise, the Gregorian calendar says that the Hijra (migration) took place about 1400 years ago.
Anthropologist Francyrosi Campos Barbosa says that Muslims were persecuted more in Mecca and there were more fights, disputes and violence.
He further said, “A part of the people in Madinah had converted to Islam. They went to Prophet Muhammad and requested him to solve their problem.
Especially there were already many problems between the Jews and those who were worshiping idols,” he says, adding that “the arrival of Prophet Muhammad was the main reason for the settlement of the problems between the people who were following different religions.”
Anthropologist Francisco Campos Barbosa is a professor at the University of São Paulo. He has also written the book “Hajja, hajja: the pilgrimage experience”.
image source, PUBLIC DOMAIN
Caliph Umar, who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic religion, would have established the calendar beginning with the Hegira.
Historically, Hijra refers to the migration of the first Muslims from Medina to Abyssinia, located between Ethiopia and Eritrea,” says Attila Gus, a scholar of religions. He is the author of the book ‘The Constitution of Medina’ and is also a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University in Sao Paulo.
But at the same time no one has agreed with a consensus that the historical event Hijra took place in this period.
There are various reasons for this. First, the method of calculating time in those days was very different from today’s method.
More specifically, Muslims who use the Hijra calendar follow the lunar calendar. It is quite different from the Gregorian calendar used in today’s mass world.
It is only 440 years since the Gregorian calendar came into circulation. Prior to that many changes were made from time to time to remove inconsistencies. That is why it is very difficult to mark the exact period with this calendar.
“And for a long time all these events were reported as hearsay. One says it happened on this date and another says no it happened on another date. This is the reason for this confusion,” says Gus.
There are those who say that Hijra took place on June 21, 622 AD. There are those who say that the Hijrah took place on the 15th or 16th of July, and in the month of September.
But according to the Islamic case, which follows a shorter calendar than the Gregorian calendar, the Hijra took place 1,444 years earlier.
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What is Hijra?
The proper meaning of the word hijra is separation or departure. “It means withdrawing oneself from someone, something, somewhere. Hijra means turning away from evil, according to the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. That evil is perceived as a society full of evil and injustice,” says researcher Gus.
Likewise Hijra is not only a physical migration but also a mental and spiritual migration.
Keeping oneself away from things forbidden by God and keeping oneself away from what God says is sinful is considered the true emigration of Muslims, says Gus.
“The essence of hijra is to bring down an unjust, unequal, xenophobic society,” he says.
What is interesting about this is that migrations have been a major factor in the emergence of various religions throughout history.
Moses led his people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.
Joseph went there to enroll himself in a census that was going on in Bethlehem. That is why Jesus Christ was born there. Later he became a religious preacher and traveled to many places.
Similarly, it was Siddhartha Gautama who left the palace life at the age of 29 and led a wandering ascetic life and later became Buddha. He was also responsible for the emergence of Buddhism.
Anthropologist Francesci Barbosa says, “We can see many similarities between religions. “Especially people who are freed from oppression are choosing the best ways to follow their preferred religion and spiritual paths,” he says.
People see this as a kind of gift from God to people who are toiling in suffering. This is what all religious experiences and scriptures imply. Belief in pre-Qur’an holy books such as the Torah, the Old Testament, and the Psalms of David is also seen as important in Islam. Because there are many key points in all of these,” he says.
For Islamic society, Ghus states that the migration movement of Prophet Muhammad was the cause of the emergence of Islamic culture and civilization.
“It was the Hijra event that led to the differentiation and clarity of different religious identities. It distinguished between monotheism and polytheism. “In particular, it singled out the monotheists, Muslims, from Jews and Christians,” Gus argues.
He also said, “Social teachings begin in the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Its tone is based on social norms. It contains teachings on how a person should behave in society, family and other people.
It has rules on how traders, merchants and farmers should behave and how a government should function,” he says.
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Medina
For scholars, Medina emerged as a model city.
“Madinah then became a symbol of a virtuous city, a place where injustice did not occur,” says Gus.
Likewise, anthropologist Barbosa said, “The Qur’an was written during the period when people settled in Medina. “The chapters of the Qur’an ‘revealed’ in Medina are different from those revealed in Mecca,” he says.
“Prophet Muhammad established a government for the first time in Madinah, setting up a constitution and rules for Muslims to follow. This is why the Hijra pilgrimage is seen as a gateway to a fully Islamic society,” insists Barbosa.
It includes all the regulations that Muslims must make from their income to their community every year, fasts to be observed every year and prayers to be performed daily.
“Many of these things were already happening in Mecca. But after coming to Madinah they were all implemented with proper planning. It was in Madinah that these were established according to religious practice,” Barboza points out.
Likewise Guz says that democratic principles were found in the society of Madinah at that time. “For me, the Hijra pilgrimage is symbolic of the relationship between Islam and democracy,” Gus says.
The Constitution of Madinah was a document signed on behalf of all walks of life including Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Arabs. This indicates the strong interfaith relationship there. Cush’s studies suggest that these constitutional charters were probably written between 622 – 624 AD.
The Constitution of Madinah became a starting point for the people to express themselves openly after centuries. Similarly, it was then that Arab people from many sects united and became the Arab community, he says.
“Looking at it from this angle, we can affirm that the people who sought their freedom through the Hijra without interfering in any way with the freedom of others became the cause of a good government and democracy. “They asserted their own independence after ensuring the independence of the people that already existed,” notes Gus.
The notes made by the second caliph who succeeded Prophet Muhammad in the Islamic calendar helped confirm that the Hijra pilgrimage was the starting point for Muslims.
Umar Ibn al-Khattab, who lived from 586 to 644, led the Muslims from 634 to 644. He also established the calendar for the next 7 years after the demise of the founding prophet.
“There was no such thing as a formal calendar in ancient Arab society. They always referred to all the events only as many years earlier. “It was to resolve this confusion that the Caliph introduced a formal calendar arrangement after the Hijra period,” says religious analyst Khuz.
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