In shā 'Allaah

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In shā 'Allaah ( Arabic إن شاء الله In shā'a llāh , DMG in šāʾa Llāh ), alsowritten inshallah , means "God willing" and is a common phrase usedby Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews and which is also generally known outside the Arabic-speaking area and is sometimes used (in different spellings).

Islam

The basis of the use of this idiom in Islam is the statement in the Koran :

“And don't say with regard to something (what you are planning to do):“ I will do this tomorrow ”without (adding): 'If God wills'! And remember your Lord if you forget (or have forgotten) to add (this?) And say, 'Perhaps my Lord will guide me (in the future) to something that is more right than this (i.e., my previous course of action)' ! "

- Translation: Rudi Paret : Sura 18 , verse 23-24

Ancient forerunners

The expression possibly goes back to the conditio Jacobaea handed down in the letter of James and is sometimes described in a Christian context as sub conditione Jacobaea or sub conditione Iacobi , sometimes abbreviated as scJ or scI at the end of the letter. In a secular context, the phrase “... so God wants “to be used as a stylistic device to bypass a binding statement.

The use of this formulation can be dated back to antiquity. In the New Testament there is a first mention of the Gospel in the letter of James in Jak 4,13-17  Lut :

"13 And now you who say: Today or tomorrow we want to go to this city or town and want to spend a year there doing business and making profit - 14 and don't know what tomorrow will be. What is your life You are a smoke that stays for a little while and then disappears. 15 On the other hand you should say: If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. "

- James the Righteous : New Testament, Epistle of James

A composition by James the Just requires a date of origin before his death in the year 62, which has been handed down independently of Flavius ​​Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea . This would make James one of the oldest writings in the New Testament . Since the 4th century it has been an accepted part of the canon of almost all Christian churches, including the Syrian Orthodox churches .

Analogous expressions in other languages ​​and religions

The expression can be interpreted as the fatalistic attitude of the speaker, but is often primarily an expression of a humility attitude , as it is expressed in various religions in everyday language and wants to express roughly: "Without God's will, man can do nothing". The German saying “ so God will ” corresponds to the literal meaning according to the Arabic Inschallah.

Already in pre-Christian antiquity, as in Macrobius , analogous terms such as Latin Deo volente or Diis volentibus (depending on whether the speaker was referring to one or more gods) were used, which also means "if God will" or " so the gods want ". The Christian remark sub conditione Jacobaea also corresponds to this concept

The Spanish and Portuguese words for hopefully ( ojalá and oxalá, respectively ) are borrowings that go back to the Arabic term Inschallah .

Musical reception

Salvatore Adamo achieved chart positions in Germany and Austria in 1967 with the song Inch 'Allah . In 2016, Sting wrote a song Inshallah ; In 2018 the song Inshallah by Bushido was released .

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: inschallah  - explanations of meanings, word origins , synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jelle Wytzes: The Last Battle of paganism in Rome. Brill, Leiden 1977, ISBN 90-04-04786-7 , p. 50 (snippet) .