ḫawāǧaẗ خَواجة , pl. -āt
ID … • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 16May2023
√ḪWǦ
sir, Mr. (title and form of address, esp., for Christians and Westerners, used with or without the name of the person so addressed) – WehrCowan1976
▪ from Pers ḫʷāǧa ‘respected person, master’ – Rolland2014
▪ Rolland2014 adds that ḫawāǧaẗ is « du même etymon » as also ↗ḫidīw ~ ḫudaywī ‘vice-king, khedive’, from Pers ḫidīv ‘ruler, governor, king’, from mPers ḫʷatāy ‘God’, IE *gʰeu‑ ‘to pour a libation’ or *gʰeu(ə)‑ ‘to invoke’1
▪ (Pers) ḫʷāǧa is »a title used in many different senses in Islamic lands. In earlier times it was variously used of scholars, teachers, merchants, ministers and eunuchs. In mediaeval Egypt, according to Qalqašandī, Ṣubḥ , vi, 13, it was a title for important Persian and other foreign merchants (cf. CIA, Égypte , i, no. 24). In Sāmānid times, with the epithet buzurg ‘great’, it designated the head of the bureaucracy; later it was a title frequently accorded to wazīrs, teachers, writers, rich men, and merchants. In the Ottoman Empire it was used of the ulema, and in the pl. form ḫʷāǧegān designated certain classes of civilian officials. In modern Turkey, pronounced hoǧa (modern orthography hoca) [see ↗ḫōgaẗ] it designates the professional men of religion, but is used as a form of address for teachers in general. In Egypt and the Levant (pronounced ḫawāgaẗ or ḫawāǧaẗ) it was used for merchants, then more particularly for non-Muslim merchants, and then as a more or less polite form of address for non-Muslims in general. In India it designates those Ismāʕīlīs who follow the Agha Khān.« – art. »Khwādja« (ed.), in ²EI.
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