Khuda (Persian: {{nq|خُدا, in Persian pronounced as /xoˈdɒː/) or Khoda is the Persian word for God. Originally, it was used as a noun in reference to Ahura Mazda (the name of the God in Zoroastrianism). Iranian languages, Turkic languages, and many Indo-Aryan languages employ the word. Today, it is a word that is largely used in the non-Arabic Islamic world, with wide usage from its native country Iran, along with Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. and some Muslim-majority areas of India, as well as Southern and Southwestern Russia.[1]
The term derives from Middle Iranian terms xvatay, xwadag meaning "lord", "ruler", "master", appearing in written form in Parthian kwdy, in Middle Persian kwdy, and in Sogdian kwdy. It is the Middle Persian reflex of older Iranian forms such as Avestan xva-dhata- "self-defined; autocrat", an epithet of Ahura Mazda. The Pashto term Xdāi (خدۍ) is a variant of this.
Prosaic usage is found for example in the Sassanid 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 as found in the Shahnameh derive.
Semi-religious usage appears, for example, in the epithet zaman-i derang xvatay "time of the long dominion", as found in the Menog-i Khrad. The fourth and eighty-sixth entry of the Pazend prayer titled 101 Names of God, Harvesp-Khoda "Lord of All" and Khudawand "Lord of the Universe", respectively, are compounds involving Khuda.[2] Application of khoda as "the Lord" (Ahura Mazda) is represented in the first entry in the medieval Frahang-i Pahlavig.
In Islamic times, the term came to be used for God in Islam, paralleling the Arabic name of God Al-Malik "Owner, King, Lord, Master".
The phrase Khoda Hafez (meaning May God be your Guardian) is a parting phrase commonly used in across the Greater Iran region, in languages including Persian, Pashto, Azeri, and Kurdish. Furthermore, the term is also employed as a parting phrase in many languages across the Indian subcontinent including Urdu, Punjabi, Deccani, Sindhi, Bengali and Kashmiri.[3] [4]
It also exists as a popular loanword, used for God in Turkish (Hüdâ),[5] Bengali (খোদা), Hindi-Urdu (ख़ुदा, خُدا),[6] Kazakh (Xuda/Quda/Qudaı), Uzbek (Xudo), Tatar (Ходай), Chinese ([7] along with,[8]), and other Indo-Aryan languages and Turkic languages.
In the Indian subcontinent, Christians who speak Urdu translate the word "God" as "Khuda" (خُدا) as God in Urdu is called Khuda, Although even Hindi speaking christians sometimes uses Khuda as a term to refer to God, though his personal name is rendered as "Yahovah" (यहोवा, یہوّاہ) or "Yahvah" (यहवा, یہوہ). Bible translations into Hindi and Urdu use these terms.[9] [10]