The Hijrat Movement

The Hijrat Movement of 1920 was one of the most extraordinary and tragic episodes of the Indian freedom struggle — a mass migration of Indian Muslims who, declaring British India to be dar al-harb (a land of war, unfit for Muslims), chose to abandon their homes and migrate to the "land of Islam." The movement was inspired by a fatwa issued by Maulana Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali and supported by prominent Deobandi scholars including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who argued that it was religiously impermissible for Muslims to live under non-Muslim colonial rule when a free Islamic state existed elsewhere. The destination was Afghanistan, ruled by Amir Amanullah Khan, who was perceived as a sympathetic Muslim ruler willing to shelter Indian Muslims fleeing British oppression.

Beginning in the summer of 1920, an estimated 18,000 to 36,000 Muslims from the North-West Frontier Province, Sindh, and Punjab sold their property, gathered their families, and began the long trek toward the Khyber Pass. They traveled in caravans — some on foot, some on bullock carts — carrying whatever belongings they could. The migration was presented as a form of non-violent protest: by physically withdrawing from British India, Muslims would demonstrate their refusal to accept colonial rule and create a demographic crisis for the administration. It was also deeply connected to the Khilafat Movement, which had convinced many Indian Muslims that loyalty to the British Empire was incompatible with their faith.

The Hijrat Movement ended in disaster. Amir Amanullah Khan, overwhelmed by the scale of the migration and under British diplomatic pressure, closed the Afghan border in August 1920. Thousands of muhajireen found themselves stranded in no-man's land, their property sold, their savings depleted, with no way forward and nothing to return to. Many died of starvation and disease. Those who did make it into Afghanistan found no promised land — they were treated as refugees, not brethren. The survivors eventually limped back to India, destitute and broken. Maulana Azad later acknowledged the Hijrat as a grave mistake, and the fatwa was withdrawn. Yet the movement, however tragic, demonstrated the depth of anti-colonial feeling among Indian Muslims and their willingness to sacrifice everything — not just their lives but their entire existence in the land of their birth — for the cause of freedom.