In Sha’ Allah

Is that “inshallah for real,” or “inshallah, it’s never going to happen?”

I recently stumbled upon this article about the possible induction of “inshallah” into the English as a side effect of the occupation of Iraq by the United States military. It seems that soldiers and evern high-level diplomats are now using this phrase—which is often misconstrued as a single word—as a part of their everyday speech.

The article resonated with me for a number of reasons. This is a phrase that I use quite often because I hang out with Muslim Arabs, and they all say it. Learning the idioms of Arabic is key to sounding like you know what you are doing at all, it seems. This is particularly common to hear after any statement regarding what will happen in the future.

It’s use, however, is very confusing. I arrived in Egypt the week before Ramadan began. Everything was fresh and new to me and I felt good. Ramadan began. Same thing: experiencing Ramadan, feeling good. I quickly began to become frustrated, though. It seemed that nothing would be accomplished during Ramadan unless it fell during the limited business hours which were adopted by the entire country. This would have been fine, at face value, but then the polite fiction began.

Rather than saying, “no,” to me, everyone would say, “Bokra, inshallah.” This literally means: “Tomorrow, if God is willing.” In reality it meant, “Nothing will happen until the end of the month after eid.” This is perhaps the most frustrating thing that can happen to someone having just arrived in a country where they intend to live for some time.

This trend of not actually meaning “if God wills it” and rather “it ain’t gonna happen” was confirmed for me in a conversation with the family of a good friend here. His dad said that usually when people say this now, they mean the latter. His mother and aunt confirmed that they actually meant it when they said “inshallah,” but then acknowledged that when many people said it, they didn’t mean it.

I am unsure as to what this trend means, if anything. On one hand, you have a bunch of non-Muslims using this phrase as an indication of possible future eventualities. On the other hand you have many Muslims saying an old, formulaic utterance and meaning the opposite.

Any thoughts? I am hoping that you all have some interesting insights, inshallah.

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