Having just come from a conference in Cairo, I can agree that everyone will want to give you directions, regardless of what they know, and everyone says “insha’allah” every second word. However, the worst culprits of the second act are British Muslims at the conference who seemed really insecure about any identification they had.
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3 thoughts on “You will read this, Insha’allah”
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Hello.. I am a new reader! I actually feel that ‘insha’allah’ is pretty nice and underused. I live in London with people who are only ‘born’ Muslim (in that it’s cultural, but they are not religious) and I was thinking about bringing it back. But perhaps it has never gone away? And it might drive me crazy if I had to hear it every second word.
Salaam Fatima, and welcome. Thank you for your presence and your comment. I love “insha’allah” as it’s a nice way of reminding ourselves of God’s omnipotence. However, I fall into the camp of “man proposes, God disposes,” rather than “as God wills.” I’m a little bit of a free-willer.
Cairo was funny because I actually did hear people using it to refer to the past and to statements of fact, such as “it’s finally cool.” Oddly, it was the Muslim from Britain who used it the most in this manner, and after having spent some time with them, I think it had to do with the fact that these particular individuals were attempting to prove they were authentic.
I understand that. My family is South African and they have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to Arab Muslims, and they go into complete ‘insha’allah’ overdrive around them because of this. I find that ‘hierachy’ that some people seem to think exists with Muslims from different places very troubling, actually.