Gender Male Meaning "witness" | Language(s) Arabic Alternative spelling Shaheed | |
Region of origin Middle East, South Asia | ||
Shahid or Shaheed (Arabic: شاهد šāhid is a Muslim given name translating to "witness", mostly found in South Asia (transcribed as Devanagari शाहिद, Bengali শাহিদ, Gurmukhī ਸ਼ਾਹਿਦ; in Urdu also written شاہد ). It is derived from the same root š-h-d (c.f. Shahadah). It is also used as a surname. Aš-šāhid الشهيد "the witness" is also one of the names given to Muhammad, and also one of the 99 names of God in the Qur'an (usually capitalized in transcription, as Aš-Šāhid "The Witness").
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The related term Shahid (Arabic: شَهيد šahīd) "martyr" is used as an honorific for Muslims who are consideed to have died in jihad ("struggle") for the faith, in battle or in jihadist suicide attacks. This is also occasionally found as a given name (transcribed as Bengali শহীদ)
Outside of Islam, it is also used in the sense of " martyrs" in Sikhism, e.g. the 18th century Shaheed Bhai Mani Singh and the Indian freedom fighter Shaheed Bhagat Singh (1907–1931).
Both meanings of šāhid (شاهد "witness") and šahīd (شهيد "martyr") have also been loaned into Hindustani and Bengali as common nouns.