Asylum Seekers

Abstract

Given the extent of pejorative political, media and public discourse on asylum seekers, particularly where Muslims are concerned, it is ironic that migration and particularly asylum seeking have a special place in the Islamic tradition. At the advent of Islam in 610, many of the early converts to the new monotheistic faith were severely persecuted by the polytheistic Meccans. Muhammad instructed the weakest and most vulnerable of his followers to emigrate from Arabia and seek asylum under the protection of the Christian king of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia). Moreover, in the year 622 the rest of the Meccan Muslim community, including Muhammad himself, migrated to a town called Yathrib (later named Madina) almost 280 miles (about 450 kilometers) to the north, where they were given asylum by the people of the town. This migration, known as the hijra in Arabic, marks year one on the Islamic calendar, as it was from this point in time and space that the religion of Islam began to take shape in terms of its characteristic rituals and laws (Rane, 2010a).