Mashallah

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For other uses, see Mashallah (disambiguation).

Mashallah (Arabic: مَا شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ, mā shāʾa -llāhu), also written Masha'Allah, is an Arabic phrase that is used to express a feeling of awe or beauty regarding an event or person that was just mentioned. It is a common expression used by Muslims, Arab Christians, and some Balkan populations to wish for their God's protection of something or someone from the evil eye.

Etymology[]

The triconsonantal root of shāʾ is šīn-yāʼ-hamza "to will", a doubly-weak root. The literal English translation is "what God has willed",[1] the present perfect of God's will accentuating the essential Islamic doctrine of predestination.

The literal meaning of Mashallah is "what God has willed", in the sense of "what God has willed has happened"; it is used to say something good has happened, used in the past tense. Inshallah, literally "if God has willed", is used similarly but to refer to a future event.

Other uses[]

"Masha Allah" can be used to congratulate someone.[2] It is a reminder that although the person is being congratulated, ultimately God willed it.[3] In some cultures, people may utter Masha Allah in the belief that it may help protect them from jealousy, the evil eye or a jinn. The phrase has also found its way into the colloquial language of many non-Arab languages with predominantly Muslim speakers, including Indonesians, Malaysians, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Bosniaks, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Avars, Circassians, Bangladeshis, Tatars, Albanians, Afghans, Pakistanis, and others.

It is also used by some Christians and others in areas which were ruled by the Ottoman Empire: Serbians, Christian Albanians, Bulgarians and Macedonians say "машала" ("mašala"), often in the sense of "a job well done";[4] also some Georgians, Armenians, some Romanians use it, Pontic Greeks (descendants of those that came from the Pontus region), Cypriot Greeks[5] and Sephardi Jews.[6]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ MashAllah meaning Islamic-dictionary.com
  2. ^ Bhala, Raj (24 May 2011). Understanding Islamic Law. LexisNexis. p. 1143. ISBN 9781579110420.
  3. ^ Al Subaihi, Thamer (22 May 2013). "Mashallah: what it means, when to say it and why you should". Thenational.ae. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  4. ^ Karadžić, Vuk (1818). Lexicon serbico-germanico-latinum. Gedruckt bei den P.P. Armeniern.
  5. ^ "μάσιαλλα". Wikipriaka.com.
  6. ^ Naar, Devin E. (2019-01-31). "Sephardic Studies and the boundaries of Jewish Studies: A year in review". jewishstudies.washington.edu.
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