‘Aql, Intelligence, Understanding. ‘Iqaal, A rope with which a camel’s foreshank is bound to his arm, both being folded together, [a hobble]. ‘Aqoul, A medicine which binds the bowels. ‘Aqeela, A woman who is kept behind a curtain, or the most excellent of camels. Mu’aqqala, as applied to camels, Bound with a rope or hobble, and applied to a she-camel on the occasion of her being covered, and hence the epithet Mu’aqqalaat applied by the poet metonymically to women, in a similar sense.
-Lane’s Lexicon, various entries under the root ‘-Q-L
On the trail the drovers were always working with camel hobbles, the ‘Aqala as they called the singular noun in their dialect, putting them on and taking them off one by one across the entire dabouka each night and morning. I doubt they were aware of the other words generated from the root, except for ‘Aql, which KhairAllah often shouted when he pointed his finger at Adam Hamid, the youngest drover, and said, He doesn’t have any. We could have used some ‘Aqoul the night we all got sick from Kalabsha’s sulphurous well water, and we did not see an ‘Aqeela, human or not, on the Darb, and certainly not any Mu’aqqalaat out there. If we had, we would have needed more than one ‘Aqala to tie Adam Hamid down for the night, maybe even four.