Hajji

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For the actress see Haji (actress). For the photographer involved in the Reuters scandal see Adnan Hajj. For the rapper, see Haji Springer. For the BLOOD+ character, see Characters of Blood+

Hajji (Arabic: الحجّي‎ al-ḥağğī, Bosnian: Hadžija, pilgrim) is an honorific title given by some non-Arab communities to a Muslim person who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca, and is often used to refer to an elder, since it takes time to accumulate the wealth to fund the travel. The title is placed before a person's name. It is derived from the Arabic al-Hajj, which follows the person's name rather than preceding it. In some areas, the title has been handed down the generations, and has become a family name. Such usage can be seen, for example, in the Bosniak surname Hadžiosmanović, which originally meant son of Hajji Osman.

[edit] Usage in the Balkan Peninsula

In Christian countries formerly under the rule of the Islamic Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, the title was also sometimes used by Christians despite the initial explicit reference to Islam. In the case of Eastern Orthodox Christians, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre is almost always meant. The title is rendered as хаджи (hadzhi) in Bulgarian Cyrillic, and хаџи (hadži) in Serbian and Macedonian Cyrillic. In Greek — as the first part in a Greek family name — it is spelled χατζη (khadzi). It can often be found in family names, whether written together, hyphenated or separate, of people who descend from pilgrims from the times of the Ottoman Empire.

[edit] Slang usage

From at least as early as 2000, and especially during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the term Hajji has been documented among U.S. military personnel as a slang reference to all things "civilian" in the Middle East. This is partly due to the fact that many Iraqis have Hajji in front of their name and is often assumed by Westerners to be a first name. Often the term is used to describe a civilian person whose ethnicity, or country of origin, while clearly middle eastern, is unknown. Some racially sensitive people may consider the word an ethnic slur directed at Muslims and Middle-Eastern people in general, but it has been found that Iraqi adults rarely take offense to the name, as it is a badge of honor. The term has gained some minor use beyond the military also. So used, the term is often collective in sense, describing a community of Muslims or Middle-Eastern people, vehicles used by civilians in the Middle East, civilian dwellings, and civilian authority figures, rather than directed towards a particular individual. Hajji can also be used as an adjective for a product of Middle-Eastern origin (for example: "Hajji Coke" for Coca-Cola that is produced in the Middle-East). However, some claim that the word as used by U.S. military personnel refers instead to Hadji, the Johnny Quest cartoon character, and is thus not related to the Muslim title or pilgrimage.