hajji

The factual accuracy of this article is disputed.

Hajji (Arabic: الحجّي al-ḥağğī, Bosnian: Hadžija, pilgrim) is an honorific title given to a Muslim person who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca,^[1] and is often used to refer to an elder, since it takes time to accumulate the wealth to fund the travel. The title is placed before a person's name. It is derived from the Arabic al-Hajj, which follows the person's name rather than preceding it. In some areas, the title has been handed down the generations, and has become a family name. Such usage can be seen, for example, in the Bosniak surname Hadžiosmanović, which originally meant son of Hajji Osman.

The term may be used as part of the person's name or addressing in various forms, depending on the culture: "Hoxha", "Khwaje", "Hodja", "Hojja","Hodscha", "Hodža", "Hoca", "Hogea", "Hodza", "Djoha", "Djuha", "Dschuha", "Giufà", "Chotzas".

Usage in the Balkan Peninsula

In Christian countries formerly under the rule of the Islamic Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, the title was also sometimes used by Christians despite the initial explicit reference to Islam. In the case of Eastern Orthodox Christians, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre is almost always meant. The title is rendered as хаджи (hadzhi) in Bulgarian Cyrillic, and хаџи (hadži) in Serbian and Macedonian Cyrillic. In Greek — as the first part in a Greek family name — it is spelled χατζη- (khatzi-). It can often be found in family names, whether written together, hyphenated or separate, of people who descend from pilgrims from the times of the Ottoman Empire.

Slang usage

From at least as early as 2000, and especially during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the term Hajji has been documented^[2] among U.S. military personnel as a generic term for non-US personnel or equipment in the Middle East; the term is used to describe a civilian, but can also be used as an adjective to refer to vehicles used by civilians in the Middle East, civilian dwellings, civilian goods, civilian food, civilian clothing, and generally anything of Middle Eastern rather than US origin while troops are stationed in the Middle East. Many people may consider the word an ethnic slur directed at Muslims and Middle-Eastern people in general, though as noted the term is used in reference to far more than just individuals. The term has gained some minor use beyond the military.

References

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