ما شاء الله

Masha'Allah

Last year, an American student told me that Masha'Allah meant something like, "God guide you," along the same lines as Allah Kareem. I used the phrase with Arabs twice. The first time happened in Damascus with an elderly woman who was selling cloth decorated with Islamic sayings. 

The second was in Amman. I had a taxi driver who, upon realizing that I partially understood Arabic, went on a long vent about the situation in Palestine. He had 11 kids (or something like that) and they were living in really poor and difficult situations in the West Bank, and there was not enough clean water for the children, etc. etc. He wanted me to go back to Amrika and tell people about how hard their life was and try to change it.

When I got out of the taxi, I really thought I was being nice by saying Masha'Allah.

Well.

Yesterday, an Iraqi friend who is fluent in English explained to me that Masha'Allah is something said to remind yourself out loud not to be jealous of another person's good fortune, because Allah doesn't approve of jealousy (it's a nice sentiment).

In fact, the Wikipedia page says that it "expresses appreciation, joy, praise or thankfulness for an event or person that was just mentioned. Towards this, it is used as an expression of respect, while at the same time serving as a reminder that all accomplishments are so achieved by the will of God...It is said upon hearing good news...Another reason people use this phrase is to prevent the evil eye or jinxing, similar to the Western idiom "knock on wood."

So this Palestinian taxi driver was telling me about his family's desperate situation, while driving me to the wealthy Deir Ghbar neighborhood, and when we parted I basically said, Gee, I Guess It's Just God's Will For Your Family And People To Be In A Shit Situation And I'm So Thankful That It's Not Me And Knock On Wood That I Don't Wind Up With Your Luck.

Great, Lucy, great.