The Cochabamba Bolivia Temple (LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
During a meeting some years ago, one of the then-counselors in our stake presidency recalled his service, decades back, as a missionary in Bolivia. \u00a0Among the phrases that he commonly heard there was Si Dios quiere<\/em> (\u201cIf God wills\u201d). \u00a0He confessed that the phrase sometimes irritated him. \u00a0\u201cWill you promise to give up smoking?\u201d a missionary would ask someone he was teaching. \u00a0\u201cSi Dios quiere!\u201d the Bolivian would respond. \u00a0All too often, it seemed a polite way of saying \u201cI have not the slightest intention of actually trying.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The phrase, which is common across the Spanish-speaking world, is almost certainly a translation of \u00a0\u0625\u0646 \u0634\u0627\u0621 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647, or in sha\u2019a Allah \u2014\u00a0<\/em>an Arabic phrase, omnipresent in Arabaphone countries and indeed the world of Islam, that means precisely the same thing. \u00a0Arabic-speaking Muslims occupied greater or lesser portions of the Iberian peninsula from Tariq b. Ziyad\u2019s invasion in A.D. 711 until the Reconquista led by Ferdinand and Isabella drove the last overt Muslims back across the Straits of Gibraltar (Jabal Tariq<\/em>, or \u201cTariq\u2019s Mountain\u201d) into North Africa in A.D. 1492. \u00a0The results of those nearly eight centuries of Arab Muslim presence dot the landscape of modern Spain \u2014 and its language.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I heard in sha\u2019a Allah<\/em> all the time while I lived in Cairo. \u00a0\u201cCan I count on you to be here tomorrow at four o\u2019clock?\u201d I would ask. \u00a0\u201cIn sha\u2019a Allah!\u201d the plumber would respond. \u00a0And he usually didn\u2019t show up.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I came to regard in sha\u2019a Allah<\/em> as, on the whole, simply a polite or evasive way of saying \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s no question that many Arabic speakers use the phrase as a refuge, an escape, from commitment, just as many Spanish speakers use its Spanish equivalent.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, that speaker years ago said that he had come to understand Si Dios quiere<\/em> much more sympathetically in recent years. \u00a0He had struggled with serious cancer for quite a while by that time \u2014 sadly, it eventually took his life \u2014 and he had just received word, after a seeming respite, that he needed still more treatment. \u00a0This, he said, had impressed very deeply on his mind, in a way that few confident and healthy young men would fully comprehend, how much we are all in the hands of the Lord \u2014 or, if you insist, under the control of forces far beyond ourselves.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I, too, have come to understand in sha\u2019a Allah<\/em> in a different and more sympathetic way than when I first became acquainted with the phrase.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many years ago, after my four years in Egypt but while I was a graduate student in California, I was saying goodbye for the evening to a classmate, a very devout Pakistani imam whom I liked a great deal. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll see you tomorrow at 2 PM,\u201d I said. \u00a0He looked at me without response. \u00a0So I tried again: \u00a0\u201cTwo o\u2019clock, right?\u201d \u00a0Still no response. \u00a0\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d I asked, puzzled. \u00a0\u201cSay in sha\u2019a Allah<\/em>,\u201d he said. \u00a0I thought he was joking, so I replied \u201cAlright. \u00a0Alright. \u00a0In sha\u2019a Allah!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
He looked at me, friendly but not quite amused. \u00a0\u201cYou arrogant Westerners,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cYou think you\u2019re in control of everything, but you\u2019re not. \u00a0Your heart could stop at any moment. \u00a0You could be hit by a car. \u00a0God is in charge, not you!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a gentle but clear rebuke from a friend, and it hit home. \u00a0And, though it came from a Muslim, it was entirely biblical.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For several reasons, I\u2019ve described the New Testament letter of James as the Bible\u2019s \u201cmost Islamic epistle.\u201d \u00a0Consider, in the light of what I\u2019ve said above, James 4:13-15:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGo to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. \u00a0For what is your life? \u00a0It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. \u00a0For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an old saying that is apropos here: \u00a0\u201cWhen is it that God laughs? \u00a0When humans make plans.\u201d \u00a0Or, alternatively, \u201cMan proposes; God disposes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the last analysis, we\u2019re actually not<\/em> the \u201cmasters of our fates, the captains of our souls.\u201d \u00a0And we should never forget that.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 During a meeting some years ago, one of the then-counselors in our stake presidency recalled his service, decades back, as a missionary in Bolivia. \u00a0Among the phrases that he commonly heard there was Si Dios quiere (\u201cIf God wills\u201d). \u00a0He confessed that the phrase sometimes irritated him. \u00a0\u201cWill you promise to give up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[198,518,2406,2403,66,1718,2400],"class_list":["post-65436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arabic","tag-arabic-influence-on-spanish-language","tag-if-god-wills","tag-in-shaa-allah","tag-islam","tag-muslims","tag-spanish"],"yoast_head":"\n
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