Hajji ( , , pilgrim), or El-Hajj, is an honorific title given to a Muslim person who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca,^[1] 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 (For instance John Smith becomes Hajji John Smith). 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 Had?iosmanovi?, which originally meant son of Hajji Osman.

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 and in particular the baptism of the pilgrim in the Jordan river. The title is rendered as ????? (hadzhi) in Bulgarian Cyrillic, and ???? (had?i) in Serbian and Macedonian Cyrillic. In Greek ? as the first part in a Greek family name ? it is spelled ?????- (khatzi-). It can often be found in family names, whether written together, hyphenated or separate, of people who descend from pilgrims, in Greek ??????, plural ????????; South Slavic had?ija, plural had?ii (Bulgarian/Macedonian) or had?ije (Serbian), from the times of the Ottoman Empire.

"Hi Jolly"

An interesting corruption of the title occurred during the U.S. Camel Corps experiment of the 1850s when a Syrian (or Greek) Muslim apparently named "Hadji Ali" came to the American Southwest. His name was popularly corrupted to Hi Jolly, although when he became an American citizen he took the name Tedro.

Usage in the Iraq War (2003- )

Hajji has become a catch-all slang used by American service members for any Arab person, and is often meant to be insulting (such as "gook" during the Vietnam War). It can also be used specifically to refer to an enemy combatant instead of a generalization, as well as a descriptive word (such as "Hajji Armor" to describe flack jacket-covered vehicles to provide ballistics protection).

The use of Hajji in this way can be seen throughout the HBO series Generation Kill, where the Marines use the word as an all-encompassing term to describe Iraqis and Arabs in general. Its connotation in this context can be construed as being derogatory.^[2]

References

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