Mashallah

Mashallah (Arabic: مَا شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ‎, mā shāʾa -llāhu), also written Masha'Allah, is an Arabic phrase meaning "what Allah has willed" and is used to express appreciation, joy, praise, or thankfulness for an event or person that was just mentioned. It is also a common expression used in the Muslim world to wish for God's protection of something or someone from the evil eye.

For other uses, see Mashallah (disambiguation).

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 Muslims including Indonesians, Malaysians, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Bosniaks, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, Avars, Circassians, Bangladeshis, Tatars, Albanians, Urdu-speaking South Asians, and others.

It is also used by some Christians and others in areas which were ruled by the Ottoman Empire: Serbians, Bulgarians, Christian Albanians and Macedonians say "машала" ("mašala"), often in the sense of "a job well done";[4] also some Georgians, Armenians, Pontic Greeks (descendants of those that came from Turkey), 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.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  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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