means “the city” (short for a phrase that meant “city of the prophet”). The emigration of the Muslims from Mecca to Medina, is known as the Hijra (often spelled Hegira in English.) A dozen years later, when Muslims created their own calendar, they dated it from this event because the Hijra, they felt, marked the pivot of history, the turning point in their fortunes, the moment that divided all of time into before the Hijra (BH) and after the Hijra (AH).
