- Edison Veiga
- BBC Information Brasil
Photograph credit score, Public area
Religions want founding myths. Within the case of Islam, this milestone is what is named the Hegira, the migration of the Prophet Muhammad (571-632) and his followers from the town of Mecca to Medina, each situated in present-day Saudi Arabia.
The course, of about 500 kilometers, was conquered in 12 days.
Muhammad was already a revered non secular chief. Thought-about a messenger of God, referred to as Allah by Muslims, he promoted reforms in Judaism and Christianity, in addition to the struggle towards polytheistic pagan religions.
This makes him the goal of hostilities in Mecca, his hometown.
Imbued along with his ideas and invited by the leaders of Medina, he determined to advertise this motion of exile.
He was already over 50 years outdated. In response to the Gregorian calendar, the Hegira occurred precisely 1,400 years in the past.
“In Mecca, Muslims had been persecuted. There was quite a lot of violence, quite a lot of arguments, quite a lot of assaults. A gaggle of converts to Islam (from Medina) went to the Prophet Muhammad to inform him that he may perform (his challenge) there, that it might be vital as a result of there was a dispute between the Jews and the idolaters”, explains the anthropologist Francirosy Campos Barbosa, professor on the College of São Paulo (USP-Ribeirão Preto) and writer of the e-book “Hajja, hajja: the expertise of pilgrimage.”
“And that (Muhammad’s arrival) was additionally vital in therapeutic the variations that existed there.”
“Usually, the Hegira was the immigration of the primary Muslims, traditionally, to the town of Medina and likewise to Abyssinia, particularly the place Eritrea and Ethiopia meet,” says cleric Atilla Kus, researcher and trainer of the Pontifical Catholic Church on the College of São Paulo (PUC-SP), and writer of the e-book The Structure of Medina.
There isn’t a consensus on the precise date of this historic occasion. For a number of causes. Beginning with the truth that the counting of time on the time was completely different from that of at the moment.
Then, as a result of for Muslims, who think about the Hegira exactly as zero level, the calendar is lunar, in contrast to the Gregorian calendar utilized in a lot of the modern world.
The Gregorian calendar itself, by the best way, was applied a lot much less time in the past – 440 years in the past – and earlier than that so many changes had been made now and again to right distortions in counting time it turns into very troublesome to do an correct replace.
“Additionally, these occasions had been transmitted orally for a very long time, so some say it was on one date, others say it was on one other,” Kus explains.
There are those that keep that the hegira started on June 21, 622. However there are additionally those that cite July 15 or 16, and even dates within the month of September.
Photograph credit score, Dominio Publico
Caliph Omar, successor of Muhammad, would have established the calendar with the Hegira as a place to begin.
Within the Muslim narrative, whose calendar is shorter than the Gregorian calendar, which relies on the solar, the central Hijri occasion occurred 1,444 years in the past.
On this calendar, the present 12 months begins on August 10, 2021 and ends on July 28, 2022.
Which means
The phrase hegira actually means separation.
“It’s to maneuver away, to maneuver away from sure individuals, from one thing, from some place. Within the basic texts of Islam, such because the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the Hijra is used as a distance of what’s unhealthy,” Kus explains.
“And on this evil is seen a society which accommodates evil and injustice.”
“Hijra shouldn’t be solely a bodily emigration of the physique to a different place, but additionally a theme that includes spirituality,” he explains.
“The true emigrant in Islam is he who departs from what God has forbidden, from what’s sinful.”
On this sense, when the hegira occurred, Kus contextualizes that it was the overthrow “of an unjust and unequal society which persecuted completely different opinions”.
It’s fascinating that the query of emigration seems elementary in lots of religions. Moses is claimed to have freed his individuals from Egypt and led them to the promised land.
Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem as a result of Joseph needed to enlist there, throughout a census that was happening. And Jesus himself, in grownup life, would turn out to be a pilgrim preacher.
The identical goes for Siddhartha Gautama, the daddy of Buddhism, who on the age of 29 will find yourself leaving the palace the place he lived to embark on a wandering life.
“I discover it very revealing that there are such similarities between religions. They arrive out of locations of oppression to locations the place individuals can stay their religiosity and their spirituality in the absolute best means”, analyzes anthropologist Francirosy Barbosa .
“It’s as if God had been sending a sign to those people who find themselves struggling that there’s a risk of redemption, a welcoming place the place individuals can train, observe their religiosity. All these non secular experiences, the sacred texts, mark that pillars of the Islamic religion is to imagine within the sacred books previous to the Koran, such because the Torah, the Psalms of David, the Outdated Testomony… As a result of these texts additionally convey references to tales which are vital to inform .
The researcher Kus factors out that this migratory motion of Muhammad represents “the start line of Islamic tradition and civilization, the start line of Islamic society”.
“When coping with the difficulty of differentiating identities, the Hijrah serves as the idea for differentiating between monotheism and polytheism, in addition to inside monotheism itself, or monotheisms, differentiating Islam from Judaism and Christianity “, explains Kus.
In Medina, then referred to as Yatreb, the primary Muslims established, in line with the non secular scholar, an “id demarcation” which can find yourself constituting the “starting of Islamic civilization”.
“Within the textual content of the Quran, the thought of social teachings begins, the Quran begins to have the tone of social normativity, teachings on how a Muslim ought to behave inside the household, with others, no matter is the angle of a dealer, a farmer, a vendor, the way it ought to be and what are the ideas of a authorities in line with Islamic ideas,” he explains.
Medina
For students, Medina turned, at the moment, a mannequin metropolis for Islam.
“There’s the idealization of the virtuous metropolis, the one the place there could be no injustice”, explains Kus.
Barbosa explains that at the moment the Quran was being written. He specifies that the suras, identify given to the chapters of the holy e-book, “revealed” in Medina are completely different from these of Mecca.
“Often the surahs revealed in Makkah had expressions like ‘oh individuals’, ‘oh people’. In Madinah the deal with is ‘oh believers’, as a result of there God was already talking to Muslim devotees,” she factors out.
In Medina, Muhammad establishes a structure with the ideas of Islam within the type of authorities. “That is why the Hegira is the gateway to a very Islamic society”, sums up the anthropologist.
Photograph credit score, Dominio Publico
The migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from the town of Mecca to Medina marks the start of Islam.
There, guidelines are established similar to annual fasting, prayers, annual contribution which have to be made in line with the earnings of every Muslim.
“Guidelines are put into observe. They tackle a format, a formulation. A few of these issues had been already carried out in Makkah, however not precisely like at the moment, inside a non secular construction. Spiritual observe turned established in Medina”, emphasizes Barbosa.
Kus, a scholar on the topic, believes that democratic ideas had been seen within the authentic society of Medina, as few had been at the moment.
“From my standpoint, the Hegira additionally symbolizes this: the connection between Islam and democracy,” he says.
“There’s a very robust relationship. The structure of Medina was a doc signed by polytheistic Christians, Jews, Muslims and Arabs at the moment.”
The textual content was formulated between the years 622 and 624 and, in line with Kus’s analysis, it had a “very robust openness to freedom of expression”, which allowed, “after many centuries”, that there was had “for the primary time a political union between completely different segments in a correctly Arab society at the moment”.
“On this sense, the Hegira could be seen as a affirmation, a political and democratic affirmation of respect for the seek for freedom with out giving up the liberty of others. One thing like guaranteeing freedom in order that your freedom can be assured” , he stated.
The understanding of the hijra because the zero level of the Muslim calendar was the work of the second caliph, that’s to say the second successor of Muhammad.
Umar Ibn Alcatab (586-644) led the Muslims from 634 to 644 and instituted the calendar seven years after the dying of the founding prophet.
“In historic Arab society there was no mounted calendar, the dates at all times diverged as a result of they had been one thing like ‘this occurred so a few years after this occasion’. To keep away from confusion, the caliph systematized the calendar from the hijrah,” Kus concludes.