God Willing

Someone named Riza sent me this info about a post I had written before called Insallah. It was about Turkish people's inability to make plans further than 24 hours in the future without saying their version of "God Willing." It was posted under "Things that bug me" but I have learned to see the cultural point of this phrase and now I can put it in the "Things that are what they are" category. Thanks Riza!

Usage of Insha'Allah derives from Islamic scripture, Surat Al Kahf (18):24: "And never say of anything, 'I shall do such and such thing tomorrow. Except (with the saying): 'If God wills!' And remember your lord when you forget...'
The Spanish word ojalá and the Portuguese word oxalá (both meaning "I hope [that]") are derived from law šāʾ Allāh[citation needed], a similar phrase meaning "if God willed it" or "if God wished it". In šāʾ Allāh is used for the execution of real actions (I'm going to the store if God wills it); law šāʾ Allāh is used to express a wish or desire one cannot fulfill (If God wished [Ojalá] that I could go to the store, but I'm busy). They are an example of the many words borrowed from Arabic due to the Muslim rule of some areas of the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to fifteenth centuries.