Khuda or Khoda ( fa, خدا) is the Persian word for "Lord" or "

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

". Originally, it was used in reference to

Ahura Mazda Ahura Mazda (; ae, , translit=Ahura Mazdā; ), also known as Oromasdes, Ohrmazd, Ahuramazda, Hoormazd, Hormazd, Hormaz and Hurmuz, is the creator deity in Zoroastrianism. He is the first and most frequently invoked spirit in the ''Yasna'' ...

(the name of the God in

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...

Iranian languages The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are groupe ...

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia ( Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turki ...

, and many

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, P ...

employ the word. Today, it is a word that is largely used in the non-Arabic

Islamic world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...

, with wide usage from its native country Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and some Muslim-majority areas of India, as well as southern and southwestern Russia.

Etymology

The term derives from

Middle Iranian The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are groupe ...

terms ''xvatay, xwadag'' meaning "lord", "ruler", "master", appearing in written form in Parthian ''kwdy'', in

Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle P ...

''kwdy'', and in Sogdian ''kwdy''. It is the Middle Persian reflex of older Iranian forms such as

Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

''x^va-dhata-'' "self-defined; autocrat", an epithet of

. The

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

term ''Xdāi'' (خدۍ) is a variant of this. Prosaic usage is found for example in the

Sassanid The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

title ''katak-xvatay'' to denote the head of a clan or extended household or in the title of the 6th century '' Khwaday-Namag'' "Book of Lords", from which the tales of

Kayanian dynasty The Kayanians (Persian: دودمان کیانیان; also Kays, Kayanids, Kaianids, Kayani, or Kiani) are a legendary dynasty of Persian/Iranian tradition and folklore which supposedly ruled after the Pishdadians. Considered collectively, the Kay ...

as found in the ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 5 ...

'' derive.

Zoroastrian usage

Semi-religious usage appears, for example, in the epithet ''zaman-i derang xvatay'' "

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

of the long dominion", as found in the ''

Menog-i Khrad The ''Mēnōg-ī Khrad'' () or ''Spirit of Wisdom'' is one of the most important secondary texts in Zoroastrianism written in Middle Persian. Also transcribed in Pazend as Minuy-e X(e/a)rad and New Persian ''Minu-ye Xeræd'', the text is a Zoroastr ...

''. The fourth and eighty-sixth entry of the

Pazend Pazend () or Pazand ( pal, 𐭯𐭠𐭰𐭭𐭣; ae, 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬌 𐬰𐬀𐬌𐬥𐬙𐬌) is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used t ...

prayer titled ''

101 Names of God In Zoroastrianism, there are 101 names and titles used to refer to Ahura Mazda. The list is preserved in Persian, Pazend, and Gujarati. The names are often taken during ''Baj'' ( ceremonial prayer) as part of Yasna while continuously sprinklin ...

'', ''Harvesp-Khoda'' "Lord of All" and ''Khudawand'' "Lord of the Universe", respectively, are compounds involving ''Khuda''. Application of ''khuda'' as "''the'' Lord" (

) is represented in the first entry in the medieval ''

Frahang-i Pahlavig ''Frahang-ī Pahlavīg'' (Middle Persian: 𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭭𐭢 𐭯𐭧𐭫𐭥𐭩𐭪 "Pahlavi dictionary") is the title of an anonymous dictionary of mostly Aramaic logograms with Middle Persian translations (in Pahlavi script) and transliter ...

''.

Islamic usage

In Islamic times, the term came to be used for

God in Islam God in Islam ( ar, ٱللَّٰه, Allāh, contraction of '' al- ’Ilāh'', lit. "the God") is seen as the eternal creator and sustainer of the universe, who will eventually resurrect all humans. In Islam, God is conceived as a perfect ...

, paralleling the Arabic

name of God There are various names of God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word ''god'' (and its equivalent in other languages) is used by multiple religions as a noun to refer to different deities, or spec ...

''Al-Malik'' "Owner, King, Lord, Master". The phrase

Khuda Hafiz Khoda Hafez ( fa, خداحافظ, Pashto: خداۍ حافظ, bn, খোদা হাফেজ (''Khoda Hafej''), ur, , hi, ख़ुदा हाफ़िज़, Kurdish: , az, Xüdafiz), usually shortened to Khodafez in Persian is a comm ...

(meaning ''May God be your Guardian'') is a

parting phrase Parting phrases, which are valedictions used to acknowledge the parting of individuals or groups of people from each other, are elements of parting traditions. Parting phrases are specific to culture and situation, and vary based on the social s ...

commonly used in across the

Greater Iran Greater Iran ( fa, ایران بزرگ, translit=Irān-e Bozorg) refers to a region covering parts of Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Xinjiang, and the Caucasus, where both Iranian culture and Iranian languages have had a s ...

region, in languages including Persian,

and Kurdish. Furthermore, the term is also employed as a parting phrase in many languages across the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

including

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

, Deccani,

Sindhi Sindhi may refer to: *something from, or related to Sindh, a province of Pakistan * Sindhi people, an ethnic group from the Sindh region * Sindhi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them People with the name * Sarkash Sindhi (1940–2012 ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

and

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

. It also exists as a popular

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

, used for

in Turkish (''Hüdâ''),

(খোদা),

Hindi-Urdu Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the '' lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the lang ...

(ख़ुदा, خُدا), Kazakh (''Xuda/Quda/Qudaı), Uzbek (''Xudo''),

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

(''Ходай'') and other

and

Christian usage

In the

, Christians who speak

translate the word "God" as "Khuda" (ख़ुदा, خُدا), though His personal name is rendered as " Yahovah" (यहोवा, یہوّاہ) or " Yahvah" (यहवा, یہوہ).

Bible translations into Hindi and Urdu The modern Hindi language and Urdu language are mutually intelligible in colloquial form, but use different scripts when written, and have mutually intelligible literary forms. The history of Bible translations into Hindi and Urdu is closely linke ...

use these terms.

References

{{Reflist Names of God in Islam Names of God in Zoroastrianism ur:خدا

Etymology

Zoroastrian usage

Islamic usage

Christian usage

See also

References