recently, leaders of radical Islamic movements
have called upon their followers to abandon jahil-
iyya society, the society of infidelity, and prepare
for Jihad against disbelievers in imitation of the
first Muslims of Medina. One of the most famous
of these groups was the Egyptian Jamaat al-Mus-
limin (Muslims Group), which was known to the
international media as Jamaat al-takFir Wa’l-hiJra
(the Excommunication and Emigration Group).
It was founded in the mid-1970s but quickly sup-
pressed by the Egyptian government. Hijra has
been used in a more secular sense by Arabs and
Muslims to describe their migrations to Europe
and the Americas to find employment.
See also christianity and islam; dar al-islam
and dar al-harb; JUdaism and islam; reneWal and
reForm movements; sharia; Usman dan Fodio.
Further reading: Zakaria Bashier, Hijra: Story and
Significance (Leicester, U.K.: The Islamic Foundation,
1983); F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994);
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and States-
man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).
hilal See moon.
Hinduism and Islam
Prior to the advent of Islam in South Asia, the
subcontinent was home to a wide variety of reli-
gious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism, and small populations of Christians
and Jews. By far the numerically and geographi-
cally largest of these was the complex of tradi-
tions grouped under the rubric of Hinduism,
a geographical term designating the religion
of the peoples who inhabited lands east of the
Indus River valley, which runs through modern-
day pakistan. The Hindu traditions developed
from the encounter between indigenous religions
devoted to particular places and deities and the
Vedic traditions brought by the migration of the
Aryans into the region, which began around 1500
b.c.e. The Vedic religion of the Aryans empha-
sized reciprocity between humans and gods, the
importance of sacrifice, and precise recitation
of the sacred scriptures to ensure ritual efficacy.
The Aryan social structure was highly stratified,
and caste hierarchy remains an element in many
Hindu traditions. The Hindu belief in a multi-
plicity of deities contrasts sharply with Islamic
monotheism. However, it should be remembered
that some forms of philosophical Hinduism are
monist in doctrine, a fact acknowledged by
Muslim travelers to the subcontinent such as al-
birUni (d. 1051).
The classical period of Hinduism that preceded
significant Muslim presence in South Asia saw the
consolidation of cults dedicated to the great gods
Shiva and Vishnu and the goddess (Devi) in her
myriad forms (for example, Lakshmi, Sita, Durga,
and Parvati). By the 10th century, the major
philosophical schools had emerged, the epic tales
Mahabharata and Ramayana were compiled, legal
and sacrificial manuals abounded, and the devel-
opment of a huge corpus of devotional literature
to particular deities was well under way. Hindu
traditions pervaded the subcontinent. Buddhism
was strong in the northeast and along the Silk
Road but was waning in influence in the subcon-
tinent as it waxed in Central, East, and Southeast
Asia. This was the world encountered by the first
significant influx of Muslims.
Islam first entered india through long-estab-
lished trade routes from the Middle East: the
Silk Road in the north and ocean passages in the
south. There are signs of early communities along
the coast, where Muslims intermarried with local
people. In the north, the first area to fall under
direct Muslim rule was the Sind, conquered by
Muhammad ibn Qasim in 711. The next major
invasion was that of Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 998–
1030), who plundered the northwest region and
attacked Ismaili Muslims who had settled there
during the 10th century. Accompanying him to
India was the Arab polymath al-Biruni, who stud-K 300 hilal