Baba (honorific)

Baba (lit. 'Father' or 'Sir')[1] is an honorific term, of Persian origin,[2] used in several West Asian and South Asian cultures.

It is used as a mark of respect to refer to Hindu and Sikh ascetics (sannyasis) and is used as a suffix or prefix to their names, e.g. Sai Baba, Baba Ramdevji, etc.[1][3]

Baba is also a title accorded to Alevi and sunni religious leader and the head of certain Sufi orders, as in Baba Bulleh Shah and Rehman Baba.[1]

Baba is also the title used for the Israeli mystical rabbis of the Abuhatzeira family, descendants of Rabbi Israel Abuhatzeira, originally from Morocco, who was called the Baba Sali.

The term was also adopted in Malaysia as an honorific of respect to address Chinese people born in British Straits Settlement.[4][2]

Baba is also the familiar word for "father" in many languages (see mama and papa); in India it has even been adapted to address male children.[2]

See also

References
  1. Platts, John T. (John Thompson). A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English. London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1884.
  2. Baba in Weiner, E. S. C.; Simpson, J. R. (1989). The Oxford English dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
  3. Hunter, William Wilson; James Sutherland Cotton; Richard Burn; William Stevenson Meyer; Great Britain India Office (1908). Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. 20. Clarendon Press. p. 295.
  4. Ooi, Keat Gin (2004). Southeast Asia : A Historical Encyclopedia, From Angkor Wat to East Timor. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. p. 198. ISBN 1-57607-770-5.

Further reading
  • Heß, Michael R. (2014). "Baba". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.


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