Rihab — Name Meaning in Islam

Root: ر-ح-ب (r-ḥ-b), "to be wide, spacious, open". Riḥāb is the plural of raḥba: broad open spaces, the wide courtyards of a house or the open ground of a town. The name is a plural, which is unusual for a given name and gives it a certain expansiveness — not one open space but many.

From the same root: raḥb (spacious, and raḥb al-ṣadr, wide-chested, means patient and generous of temper), marḥaban — the ordinary Arabic word for welcome, which literally offers the guest a spacious place to settle; tarḥīb (to welcome), raḥuba (to become wide), ruḥb. The Qur'an uses the verb in at-Tawba 9:25 and again at 9:118, where the earth is described as having closed in on people despite its vastness — the vastness is this root.

Spellings: Rihab, Rehab (a common transcription in Egypt, though it collides awkwardly with the English word), Rihâb (Turkish, rare), Rihab (Indonesian), Rehab (Urdu), Rihab or Rehab (French/Maghrebi), رحاب.

Pronunciation: ri-HAAB — stress on the second syllable, which is long. The middle consonant is ḥāʾ, a voiceless sound made by constricting the throat, quite different from an English h and never to be softened into one.

Masculine counterpart: Rahib is not used; Rahba appears as a place name rather than a personal one.