What it means
طلب (talab) means money owed to you: a receivable, a claim, something someone else must pay you. The word came into Persian from Arabic ṭalab, meaning request, demand, or something sought. In Persian financial speech, talab sits on the other side of the ledger from bedehi: your bedehi is your debt, your talab is your credit, what the world owes you. In everyday speech it also covers wages or money not yet received, so a worker whose salary is overdue may say talabam nadadand (they didn’t give me what I’m owed).
How to use it
- از اون طلب دارم. (az un talab dâram.) “He owes me money.”
- طلبمو نگرفتم هنوز. (talabamo nagareftam hanuz.) “I still haven’t collected what I’m owed.”
- برو طلبتو بگیر. (baro talabato begir.) “Go collect what’s owed to you.”
- حساب طلب و بدهی رو بنویس. (hesâb-e talab o bedehi ro benevis.) “Write down the accounts receivable and payable.”
Cultural note
In Iranian accounting and small business culture, the pair talab va bedehi (receivables and payables) is a standard phrase, used even by shopkeepers with no formal accounting training. Many small shops keep a handwritten ledger, a daftar, with two columns: one for talab (what customers owe them) and one for bedehi (what they owe suppliers). Collecting talab from reluctant debtors is a common social tension and the subject of many Persian proverbs about money and trust.