Khoja (Turkestan)
Khoja or Khwaja (Kazakh: қожа; Kyrgyz: кожо; Uyghur: خوجا; Persian: خواجه; Tajik: хӯҷа; Uzbek: xo'ja; Chinese: 和卓; pinyin: hézhuó), a Persian word literally meaning 'master' or ‘lord’, was used in Central Asia as a title for the descendants of the noted Central Asian Naqshbandi Sufi teacher, Ahmad Kasani (1461–1542) or others in the Naqshbandi intellectual lineage prior to Baha al-Din Naqshband. The most powerful religious figure in the late Timurid era was the Naqshbandi Shaykh Khwaja Ahrar.