Triliteral root R-B-H. Nouns. Ribh, Profit, gain, increase [gained in traffic], excess or surplus [obtained above the capital expended]. Rabah, Camels that are brought from one place to another for sale, meat fat. Rubah, A young weaned camel. Raabih, One who profits, a man’s proper name [name of one of our drovers in 1988]
Triliteral root R-B-W. Noun. Riba, Usury, unlawful or excessive profit or interest
-Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon
And of their taking usury [riba] when they were forbidden it…we have prepared for those of them who disbelieve a painful doom.
-Quran, Chapter 4
I owed a lot to KhairAllah. After eighty days on two trips with him, laying on his shoulders all our extra troubles, making him work overtime to keep an eye on us and figure out what I was saying to him in my gibberish that only he, not any of the others, could fully understand- I really owed him many more than one. So I told him that he would share in the profit of the film. I told him, You are Batal al-Shaasha, Hero of the Screen, and everyone knows you in London and New York and Riyadh. This may in fact have been true because the film ran on television in those cities, and worldwide.
But I did not know the Arabic word for legal profit, only the word for illegal gain under Islamic law. I was afraid that he would take it badly if I used the word Riba, which I knew, and not the word Ribh, which I did not. But I should have known that word for the many times on the trail that I called out to Raabih…Ya Raabih, Inta ‘Atshan, Aw lissa?, O Raabih, Are you thirsty, Or still not yet? And the many times we talked about Rubah, weanling camels. And the fact that we were driving a herd of Rabah from Kordofan to Cairo for Abu Jaib’s profit. But I didn’t yet know those words.
So I explained my dilemma to Mahdi and asked him what word to use. Just give KhairAllah the money and he will take it, he laughed. It doesn’t matter what you call it. He will understand.