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Hegira

noun
(Written also hejira)
1.
The flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 which marked the beginning of the Muslim era; the Muslim calendar begins in that year.  Synonym: Hejira.
2.
A journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment.  Synonyms: exodus, hejira.






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"Hegira" Quotes from Famous Books



... in vain, even at the Grand Opera, if our actor does not object. But I must confess we experienced a deeper impression when, toward the northeast of the town, our arba deposited us in front of the finest of the mosques of Central Asia, which dates from the year 795 of the Hegira ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... a singularly urbane and gentlemanly old dealer in such things, a Mr. Fennel, whose stock phrase: 'Pray don't put yourself about on my account, sir, I beg,' seemed to me to form his reply to every remark of my father's. And thus, momentous though the hegira might be, and was, to us, I suppose it did not call for any very serious amount of detailed preparation, once my father had ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... but—and it was among the novelties of the campaign—Republicans no longer feared to alienate the Irish. The Government's apparent apathy toward the Boers also drove into the Democratic ranks for the time a great number of Dutch and German Republicans. Colored voters were in this hegira, believing that the adoption of the "subject-races" notion into American public law and policy would be the negro's despair. The championing of this movement by the Republican party they regarded as a renunciation of all its ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... infirmities, took him for a partner. He proposed again; he was accepted; led two years of troubled married life; and awoke one morning to find his wife had run away with a dashing drummer, and had left him heavily in debt. The debt, and not the drummer, was supposed to be the cause of this hegira; she had concealed her liabilities, they were on the point of bursting forth, she was weary of Bellairs; and she took the drummer as she might have taken a cab. The blow disabled her husband, his partner was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... neighborhood because they refused to acknowledge his claims and believe in him as a prophet foretold in their Scriptures; two of these tribes were exiled, and the third exterminated in cold blood. In the second year after the Hegira[a], or flight from Mecca (the period from which the Mohammedan era dates), he began to plunder the caravans of the Coreish, which passed near to Medina on their mercantile journeys between Arabia and Syria. So popular did the ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... himself in the public eye as long as he could drag out an excuse. His witnesses were all from among the old settlers in the Newbolt neighborhood over in Sni, who had the family record from the date of the Kentucky hegira. They were summoned for the purpose of sustaining and adding color to the picture which Hammer intended to draw of his client's well-known ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... profited by his victory only to accomplish a retreat without loss of prestige. Abdullah had no illusions. More troops would be sent. They were too near to Khartoum. Prudence counselled flight to regions more remote. But before this new Hegira the Mahdi appointed his four Khalifas, in accordance with prophecy and precedent. The first was Abdullah. Of the others it is only necessary at this moment to notice Ali-Wad-Helu, the chief of one ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... several mathematical, astronomical, medical and chemical terms as alcohol, alcove, alembic, algebra, alkali, almanac, assassin, azure, cipher, elixir, harem, hegira, sofa, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... 632; it was here he from that date lived, where he died, and where his tomb is, in a beautiful and rich mosque called El Haram (i. e. the inviolate), erected on the site of the prophet's house. See HEGIRA. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... I write post-hoste to ensure a frank. Thanks for your hearty congratulations. I may now date from the 6th week of my Hegira or Flight from Leadenhall. I have lived so much in it, that a Summer seems already past, and 'tis but early May yet with you and other people. How I look down on the Slaves and drudges of the world! its inhabitants are a vast cotton-web of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... holy Arabian woman who lived in the second century of the Hegira, or the eighth century of ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... the gems of ancient Arabic poetry. She was not what would be called in modern times a refined or delicate lady, being regarded as proud and masculine in temper even by the Arabs of her own age. In the eighth year of the Hegira, her son Abbas brought a thousand warriors to join the forces of the Prophet. She came with him and recited her poetry to Mohammed. She lamented her brother for years. ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... for business. Then it must be that the three who lay stupefied had had money to invest at monte, and had been plied with mescal until both cash and consciousness had left them, and all this would account for the sudden hegira from the store the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... captive or a fugitive. In all haste he and his court had their treasures carried on a man-of-war in the Lisbon harbor and prepared for flight. Most of the nobility of the country followed him on shipboard, the total hegira embracing fifteen thousand persons, who took with them valuables worth fifty millions of dollars. On November 29, 1807, the fleet set sail, leaving the harbor just as the advance guard of the French came near enough to gaze on its swelling sails. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... related by Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 421, vers. Pocock). The recollection of the true history (Decline and Fall, &c., vol. ii. p 140—152) will teach us to appreciate the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which precede the Hegira.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... such profane heresies," says an orthodox doctor of Mecca, "it was in the six hundred and sixty-sixth year of the Hegira (about the middle of the thirteenth century of the Christian era) that Abouhasan Scazali, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of our most holy prophet, sinking under fatigue, extreme heat, and old age, called unto him Omar, a venerable ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... other, and wild rumors were rife of incursions over the Potomac by wild-haired riders from Virginia. Even the fungi of the departmental desks, seeming suddenly imbued with life, rose and threw away their quills—and with them the very bread for their families—to go South. It was the modern hegira! ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... Canada passed under British control, sold their seigneuries and went home to France. How great this hegira was can scarcely be estimated with exactness, but it is certain that the emigres included all the military and most of the civil officials, together with a great many merchants, traders, and landowners. The colony lost those who could best afford to go; in other words, those whom ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... fought. During the same period, he was besieged in Medina, by the implacable Koreish; but, by his own skill, and the bravery of his troops, he repelled all their attacks. In the sixth year of the Hegira, with 1,400 men, he meditated what he asserted to be a peaceful pilgrimage to the holy temple of Mecca. Entrance into the city being refused by the people, the prophet, in his anger, determined to force his way. At this critical juncture an ambassador was despatched ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... herself, against her will, sharing in the general eagerness respecting these letters. It would have been a very strong mind indeed, or a very obdurate heart, which could have remained unmoved at Lord Chetwynde's delight when he received his boy's letters. Their advent was also the Hegira from which every thing in the family dated. Apart, however, from the halo which surrounded these letters, they were interesting in themselves. Guy wrote easily and well. His letters to his father were half familiar, half filial; ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... have succeeded with the Christian lesson in his mouth.—"Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart"? It must be added, that Mahomet did not venture upon the prohibition of wine till the fourth year of the Hegira, or the seventeenth of his mission, when his military successes had completely established his authority. The same observation holds of the fast of the Ramadan, (Mod. Univ. Hist. Vol. i. pp. 126 ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... for things Oriental finds also frequent expression in his own poems. In Naechte des Orients (vol. i. p. 7 seq.),[233] like Goethe before him, he undertakes a poetic Hegira to the East: ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy

... must have been crazy when the wind was at NNE; for who but Walking Stewart ever dated his books by a computation drawn—not from the creation, not from the flood, not from Nabonassar, or ab urbe condita, not from the Hegira—but from themselves, from their own day of publication, as constituting the one great era in the history of man by the side of which all other eras were frivolous and impertinent? Thus, in a work of his given to me in 1812 and probably published ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... etc. The absurdity of this story, inconsiderately repeated by historians, if any argument were necessary to prove it, becomes sufficiently manifest from the fact, that the instrument is dated in the 142d year of the Hegira, being a little more than fifty years after the conquest. See Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis, (Matriti, 1760,) ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... old fellows stealing to their pleasures. Birmingham is large, and swarms with people and trade, but did not answer my expectation from any beauty in it: yet, new as it is, I perceived how far I was got back from the London hegira; for every alehouse is here written mug-house, a name one has not heard of since the riots ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... whereas it is well-known, they say, that the Khoteners from ancient times till now have been Mohammedans;—as if they could have been so one hundred and seventy years before Mohammed was born, and two hundred twenty-two years before the year of the Hegira! And this is criticism in China. The catalogue was ordered by the K'ien-lung emperor in 1722. Between three and four hundred of the "Great Scholars" of the empire were engaged on it in various departments, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... entered the door, her thoughts in a lofty hegira to the far off land of make believe—her better self striving to marshal them to the cold realities of duty that lay before her. She had been cleaning the little addition at the rear of the dwelling ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... in Ferishta seems to imply that the Afghans in the Sulimani mountains were already known by that name in the first century of the Hegira, but it is uncertain how far this may be built on. The name Afghans is very distinctly mentioned in 'Utbi's History of Sultan Mahmud, written about A.D. 1030, coupled with that of the Khifjis. It also appears frequently in connexion with the history of India in the 13th and 14th centuries. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... assault, being also by much the weakest part of the empire, and immediately after the close of a desolating war—should in four campaigns be found indefensible? We must remember the unexampled abruptness of the Arabian revolution. The year sixteen hundred and twenty-two, by its very name of Hegira, does not record a triumph but a humiliation. In that year, therefore, and at the very moment when Heraclius was entering upon his long Persian struggle, Mahomet was yet prostrate, and his destiny was doubtful. Eleven years after, viz. in six hundred and thirty-three, the prophet was ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... Leons, braving every danger, submitting to every privation, sacrificing wealth, fame, everything, in quest of the precious boon? What a hecatomb of mouldering bones would bestrew those fields of ice! For though not one in ten thousand might reach the promised goal, the hegira would still go on till the end of time, each deluded mortal hoping that he might be that happy, fortunate one. As the dying millionnaire would give all that he possesses for one moment of time, so would all mankind throw every present blessing into the scale, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... The trade drew off into the wilderness the vigorous blood of the colony. It cast its spell over New France from Lachine to the Saguenay. Men left their farms, their wives, and their families, they mortgaged their property, and they borrowed from their friends in order to join the annual hegira to the West. Yet very few of these traders accumulated fortunes. It was not the trader but the merchant at Montreal or Quebec who got the lion's share of the profit and took none of the risks. Many of ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... About all that this hegira meant to Rose was that she got two solid hours' sleep on the train going up on Thursday afternoon and another two hours on the train coming back on Sunday morning. She had domesticated herself automatically, in the little hotel across ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... have only to say that it, of course, added to the reputation of one man—and of one woman as well, it may be added, for Jean in her necessary social functions grew in her way with Grant; but otherwise it made little difference. There was the family hegira to the capital, and much enjoyment of the limited attractions of the semi-Ethiopian and shabby but semi-magnificent city in a miasmatic valley, and it was, no doubt, some education for the children. To Grant it was a fray, of course, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... fellow-worshippers, and he was their high priest. They were fascinated by his brilliant utopias. He was no longer a legislator, a politician, a philosopher only. He was a man of inspiration, a prophet, the Mahomet of a new hegira. His sayings were oracles. His doctrines were enunciated in sententious and poetical language; and from his place of exile they were disseminated over the Italian peninsula. It has been shown already how generously Pius IX. had recalled from banishment many subjects who had violated ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... the question of the Great Metropolitan Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a letter from Mr. Ascott, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... remained in Newgate for a year, compounded for his fine in the sum of L 100, which his friends advanced, and was a free man on the 19th of July, 1677, a day which the Muggletonians observed as the prophet's Hegira. ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp



Words linked to "Hegira" :   escape, flight



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