hijra

plural hijras · alternative hejra · alternative hijada · alternative hijara · alternative hijrah

1. A eunuch in South Asia, especially one who dresses as a woman.First known use 19th c.

   When the Mughal court was disbanded, Muslim hijras were exposed for the first time to the other, Hindu, tradition of eunuchry.

   1993, William Dalrymple, City of Djinns, Penguin, published 2004, page 172

2. A (typically biologically male or intersex, but sometimes biologically female) member of a somewhat feminine third gender found in India and Pakistan.

   Nanda profiles […] an uncastrated hijra who is married to a man and has an adopted son; and a hermaphrodite hijra […]

   2013, Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies, →ISBN, page 280

   3 more examples

   The subjects of this study are hijras or the "third sex" of India, individuals who occupy a unique, liminal space between male and female, sacred and profane.

   1995, Gayatri Reddy, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, & Culture) https://web.archive.org/web/20070529055321/http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16479.ctl

   Even more surprisingly, there are female hijras, women who were born women, who are drawn into the gharanas by the attraction and apparent safety of the hierarchies' substitute for family life.

   2011, AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India, →ISBN, page 111

   While videographers were shooting him as he sat on the floor among a group of male and female sex workers, two transgender (male-to-female) hijras came to sit next to him, one on either side.

   2013, Raymond A. Smith, Global HIV/AIDS Politics, Policy, and Activism, →ISBN, page 208

plural hijras · alternative hijrah

1. Alternative letter-case form of Hijra.
2. Any similar flight or emigration to a better place.
3. IslamEmigration from a non-Muslim country to a Muslim one.

   Hijrah means Moving from a land of Shirk to a land of Islaam.

   2007, Abu Maryam Isma’eel Alarcon, transl., The Three Fundamental Principles of Imaam Muhammad bin ‘Abdil-Wahhaab, Al-Ibaanah E-Books, page 17

alternative Hijrah · alternative Hidjra · alternative Hegira · alternative Hejira · alternative hijra

1. The flight of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib (later Medina) in 622 ce, which forms the first year of the Islamic era (ah 1).
2. AH: the Islamic era, dated from the Hijra.

   Since the Muslim lunar year contains only 354 days, the year 2005 is approximately equivalent to Hijra 1426.

3. The Islamic calendar, dated from the Hijra.