mihaffa

English

Adolphe & Émile Rouargue's 1855 Camel Train, including camel-borne mihaffas

François Balthazar Solvyns's 1790s "Mohafa", depicting a Kolkata mihaffa

Alternative forms

• mahafa, mahafah, mahaffa, mahaffah, mahaffee, mahoffi, mihafa, mihaffah, mohafa, mohaffa, mohaffah, muhafa, muhafah, muhaffah

Etymology

From Arabic مِحَفَّة (miḥaffa) directly and via Persian محافه (miḥâfah), Urdu محفہ (miḥaffa), and Hindi मिहफ़्फ़ा (mihaffā), related to Arabic حَفَّ (ḥaffa, “to enclose, to border”).

Noun

mihaffa (plural mihaffas)

1. (Middle East, Central Asia and India, chiefly historical) Various forms of covered animal-borne litters, chiefly for female passengers.
   • 1898, George Speirs Alexander Ranking translating 'Abd al-Qadir ibn-Muluk Shah al-Bada'uni as Muntakhabu-t-Tawārīkh, Vol. I, p. 457:

     Shir Khān... alleged as a pretext that he had a large number of families with him, and having placed two thousand armed Afghāns in closed litters⁷ sent them towards the fort.
     7 The Mihaffa is, as its name implies, a litter so closed in that the curtains surround on all sides the sitter upon it...

   • 1930, The Naval Review, volume 18, page 617:

     Yet comfort in those days might well be considered hardship in these. Men who experienced the sensations of transport by camel cacolet during the Great War will sympathise with poor Mr. Beawes, who was daily shaken almost to pieces in a mihaffa.

   • 1982, Michael Winter, Society and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt..., p. 170:

     ...ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad Abuʾl-Ḥasan al-Bakrī (d. 952/1545–6), a rich ʿālim and a Sufi, wrote poetry. Shaʿrānī reports that he was the first to go on pilgrimage in a litter (miḥaffa).

   • 1987, Krishna Mohan Shrimali, Essays in Indian Art, Religion, and Society, page 274:

     Royal ladies generally travelled in the imaris—an octagonal seat with canopy and its sides covered with curtains, carried by an elephant on its back or in the mihaffa—a rectangular seat, carried by two camels.

   • 2004, Mansura Haidar, Indo-Central Asian Relations from Early Times to Medieval Period, page 181:

     The Central Asian mihaffa (a sort of wooden turret suspended from two poles between two camels used at the time of travelling) was also common in India.

2. (India, chiefly historical) Various forms of covered human-borne litters and sedan chairs, chiefly for female passengers.
   • 1811, F. Baltazard Solvyns, Les Hindoûs, Vol. III, Plate IV:

     Mohafa. This is the palanquin of rich females... it is entirely covered with a red lianging, and has no other ornament than a ball of copper at the top of the bambou... The Mohafa is carried by four servants, and attended by a number proportioned to the rank of the lady... Nevertheless the women who conform strictly to the precepts of their religion, are attended but by four bearers, however great their fortune.

   • 1883, James Wise, Notes on the Races, Castes, and Trades of Eastern Bengal, page 387:

     The Levirate marriage... expenses are borne by the bridegroom, and the bride is carried with much parade in a palanquin, enclosed with curtains (Mihaffa).

Translations

Translations

• Arabic: مِحَفَّة (miḥaffa)
• Hindi: मिहफ़्फ़ा (mihaffā), मुहाफ़ा (muhāfā)
• Urdu: محفہ (miḥaffa), محافہ (muḥāfa)