If you spend time around Indian workers in Saudi Arabia, you will often hear the same story. A supervisor calls out “Rafiq” to get someone’s attention. A shopkeeper uses it the way others might say “boss” or “brother.”
The person being addressed may not be named Rafiq at all. For many Indians, the label can feel odd, sometimes even dismissive. But the reason it shows up so often is less about Indians specifically and more about how Arabic words get used as shortcuts in mixed, high-volume labour settings.
At the most basic level, rafiq is a regular Arabic word. It means companion, associate or colleague. In everyday conversation, it can be used loosely for someone alongside you, especially when you do not know the person well. Like many languages, Arabic has words that can function as both meaning and an address.
The intent is often practical, not personal.
So how did it become something many South Asians hear as if it is a default name? The answer sits in Gulf labour history. From the 1970s onwards, Saudi Arabia’s oil-fuelled expansion created a huge demand for workers in construction, transport, maintenance, and domestic services. Millions arrived from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Worksites were large, turnover was high, and language barriers were common. In those conditions, some employers and supervisors stopped using names in day-to-day exchanges and leaned instead on a small set of familiar words that conveyed “the worker with me” or “the helper here.” Rafiq fit that need.
There is also an older, more hierarchical shade to the word that matters.
In some contexts, rafiq could be used for an assistant or aide, someone who accompanies a superior during work or travel. As migrant workers became closely associated with these roles, the term began to stick to the people doing them. Over time, what began as a descriptive word turned into a habit: a catch-all label for the foreign worker right in front of you.
This is why the same word can land differently depending on who says it and how. Many Saudis do not mean it as an insult. They use it casually, as shorthand, without thinking about how it sounds to the person on the receiving end. But it can still feel reducing. When someone repeatedly uses a generic term instead of your name, it signals that you are seen as a role before you are seen as an individual.
It is also not a phenomenon limited to Indians. Migrant communities across the Gulf have long been grouped under everyday labels tied to jobs, status, or stereotypes. These habits tend to thrive in places where citizens and migrants occupy very different positions in the social and economic order.
The practice has been weakening in more formal workplaces. As Saudi Arabia modernises labour systems and more mixed professional environments grow, many people default to names, English job titles, or polite forms of address instead. Younger Saudis, especially those exposed to international work culture, are often more comfortable doing that.
In the end, the “Rafiq” habit is a small window into a much bigger story: the way mass migration reshapes language, and the way words can quietly carry hierarchy even when they sound ordinary.
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