▪ 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 A
gha
Khān.« – art. »
Khwā
dja« (ed.), in
²EI.