- English translation
Clean or crooked, it all went down the same throat.
- Literal wording
Lawful, we ate it; forbidden, we ate it.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying portrays a person for whom the moral origin of a gain makes no difference. Halal or haram, the religious categories of permitted and forbidden, the result is the same to them: they consume it. Eating stands for profiting, and the line's moral force rests on that religious framing.
By putting the words in the first person, the proverb sketches the shrugging voice of someone who has stopped telling clean earnings from tainted ones. Repeating 'we ate it' after each category flattens the distinction that religious and ethical teaching asks people to keep.
- When it is used
Said about someone who takes whatever income comes their way without asking whether it was gained lawfully. It is a pointed, potentially insulting criticism, since it implies dishonest or careless earnings; the first-person voice can sound like mocking imitation of that attitude.
- Register
- Colloquial Arabic
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: Clean or crooked, it all went down the same throat.