Hadrat

Hazrat, Hadrat, Hadhrat, or Hadrah (Arabic: حَضْرَة, romanized: ḥaḍra, pl. حَضْرَات ḥaḍrāt; Persian: حضرت, romanized: hazrat; Turkish: hazret) is a common Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Iranian, Afghan, and honorific Arabic and Turkish title used to honour a person. It literally denotes and translates to "presence, appearance."

Usage

Initially, the title was used for the prophets of the Islamic faith: the twenty-five great Hadhrats include Muhammad, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Jesus. It carries connotations of the charismatic and is comparable to traditional English honorifics addressing high officials, such as "Your Honour" (for judges), "Your Majesty" (for monarchs), or "Your Holiness" (for clerics). This word may sometimes also appear after the names of respected Muslim personalities, such as imams, sheikhs, and ulama e.g. Turkish Hazretleri ('his Hadrat') in Islamic culture. This is similar to the French honorifics Monsieur and Madame, and Japanese honorific Sama. The term was also loaned by Turkish into Albanian and Bosnian as Hazreti. In Urdu, the term is formally used to refer to a male in general, such as in the literary phrase ḵẖawātīn o ḥazrāt (خواتین و حضرات, transl. 'women and men'), while banda (بندہ) is more common in informal contexts.