Mashallah


Mashallah, also spelled mashaAllah or ma sha Allah, is an Arabic phrase that means "what God 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.

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", 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. It is a reminder that although the person is being congratulated, ultimately God willed it. 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", often in the sense of "a job well done"; also some Georgians, Armenians, Pontian Greeks, and Cypriot Greeks.