Hajji
Encyclopedia
Hajji or El-Hajj, is an honorific title given to a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 person who has successfully completed the Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...

 to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

, and is often used to refer to an elder, since it can take time to accumulate the wealth to fund the travel. The title is placed before a person's name (For instance Saif Gani becomes Hajji Saif Gani). It is derived from the Arabic al-Ḥājj, which is the active participle of the verb ḥajja 'to make the pilgrimage to Mecca'. The alternative form ḥajjī is derived from the name of the Hajj with the adjectival suffix -ī, and this was the form adopted by non-Arabic languages. In some areas, the title has been handed down the generations, and has become a family name
Family name
A family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...

. Such usage can be seen, for example, in the Bosniak
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...

 surname Hadžiosmanović, which means 'son of Hajji Osman'.

Women who complete the Hajj are referred to as Hajjah or الحاجة al-Ḥājjah., or (in Hausa
Hausa language
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...

/Fulani) Hajiya.

In Arab countries, Ḥājj and Ḥājjah (pronunciation varying based on the form of Arabic spoken
Varieties of Arabic
The Arabic language is a Semitic language characterized by a wide number of linguistic varieties within its five regional forms. The largest divisions occur between the spoken languages of different regions. The Arabic of North Africa, for example, is often incomprehensible to an Arabic speaker...

) is a common respectful manner of addressing any older person, regardless of whether or not the person in question has actually performed the pilgrimage.

The term is also used in the Balkan Christian countries that were once under Ottoman domination (Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

, Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

 and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

) for a Christian who had traveled to Jerusalem and the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

s.

In Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, where for centuries Christians and Muslims intermixed freely and Jerusalem is conveniently local, the title became so prevalent as to be permanently integrated into some Greek Christian family names, such as Hajiioannou, regardless of any lack of qualification.

Racial Slur

Hajji, Haji or Hodgie is more recently used as a derogatory
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 term by American military personnel as a comprehensive term for Iraqis, Arabs, Afghans, or Middle Eastern and South Asian people in general. It is comparable to the term "gook
Gook
Gook is a derogatory term for East Asians which came to prominence in reference to enemy soldiers. U.S. Marines serving in the Philippines in the early 20th century used the word to refer to Filipinos. The term continued to be used by American soldiers stationed around the world to refer to...

," used by U.S military personnel during the Vietnam War,.
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