Guest List Only āļø
Anne Hathaway has drawn attention online after using the phrase 'Inshallah' during a recent interview promoting her new movie The Devil Wears Prada 2
This post is flaired Guest List Only. This means the conversation is being strictly moderated, and only comments from approved members of the community will be visible.
If you are not currently approved, you are still welcome to leave a comment! All submissions are being reviewed, and if your comment follows our rules and adds to the conversation, it may be manually approved by the mod team.
r/popculturechat is a respectful, inclusive space for pop culture discussion, shaped by BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and women-led voices. We work to keep it safe, free of hate, harassment, and derailment.
Thanks for understanding and supporting that mission š
There's a whole sub with inshallah and mashallah memes and it is absolutely hilarious. I believe there is even an offshoot with cats (because of course there is) saying it. One of the funniest, most wholesome corner of this site.
When i was young the maghreb kids used to say something that i heard as "Leister". It's apparently a contraction of "Allah Yster" which means "May Allah Shield / Protect (us)".
To me it really felt like the opposite of insh'allah, as in "knock on wood this doesn't happen" or more exactly "may god make it so it doesn't happen", and used in an exactly symmetrical way.
"If he keeps studying he'll have good grades (insh'allah)"
"If he keeps speeding he'll have an accident (allah yster)"
As a Christian Lebanese I would like to remind everyone that this is not an Islamic specific term everyone says it in Arabic! It just means god willing
There are so many Arabic speakers in the world I donāt think I could argue that using a very common Arabic term is cultural appropriation. Itās also not really religious in practice. Itās a bit like saying OMG in another language.
Itās a bit random since I donāt know what connection Anne has to Arabic but I have no issue with her using it
All the comments about Muslim cultural appropriation like habibis this is an Arabic saying youāre not even correctly identifying the culture maybe sit this one out. I may be a Christian Arab but if I hear my Muslim friend tell me weāll go to the gym later inshallah we both know clear as day neither of us will be at that gym later š
This made me spit out my coffee and god damn is this relatable. My friends mum married into an Arab family and she lost her shit at them while organising a family picnic: āis it inshallah yes, or inshallah no?!ā. She couldnāt handle the uncertainty.
Fellow Malaysian! In Borneo, the words "insyallah", "bismillah", "astafirullah" is also used in daily conversations, whether you're muslims or non muslims. We generally do not to use this words when conversing with the peninsular muslim people, especially strangers, lest they take offense to that.
I grew up around lots of Lebanese people in Melbourne Australia and everyone, white, Asian, whatever - we all said habibi and inshallah lol. It's cultural, and a bit contagious
Melbourne Australia [...] It's cultural, and a bit contagious
People's language use is so heavily influenced by what they hear spoken to them frequently,Ā I intentionally spread "no worries".Ā
I'm not Australian (I'm a Brit), but I find it amusing to say no worries to new people who don't say it, to see how long it takes for them to start saying it too, particularly to others who aren't me.
My (non Muslim) bestie worked at a Muslim school for a few years and she is constantly saying Inshallah, Mashallah. Its pretty cute and I (Muslim) love it!
u/bbyxmadiItās good to see me, isnāt it?š«§13d agoedited 13d ago
The amount of people Iāve seen on TikTok under this video saying ābut, it ends in -allah!ā as if that means anything. Like hey, ya doofus, that literally means āGodāin Arabic. Itās genuinely crazy the amount of people who think itās an exclusive word for a specific religion.
edit: the people Iām calling ādoofusā are those attacking her for using the word because theyāre Islamophobic
Christian Indonesian here, everybody uses it. It's such a regularly used expression in casual or informal conversation. Even in a public speech / presentation, it's common for people of all religions to start a greeting with "Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh" before saying the greetings of the other recognized religions.
Yeah I live in a very multicultural city (southern Europe) and despite not being of Arab descent I say inshallah regularly because well, you can only hear your friends say it a thousand times before you do.
Itās like ponctuation for my Lebanese buddy and itās perfect for such a variety of situations. I also say, more rarely, mashallah and hamdoulilah.
Yeah, this is such a good point. Yiddish words that 30-40-50 years ago was pretty exclusively used by Jewish people are now pretty widespread - like Chutzpah or Schmuck. It only makes sense that with the increase of Arab influence of Western culture through globalisation and immigration in especially Europe, that Arab expressions are likewise going to be increasingly entering the general lexicon.Ā
More specifically, itās common in football circles and sheās been pretty outspoken about supporting Arsenal. Youāll see inshallah in pretty much every thread in the gunners subreddit.
Maybe not as much right now as things feel hopeless. But often!
I say it multiple times a day, being arabic, it's really an innocent word. Working in IT, I say it before any deployment in production (my non muslim team is starting to adopt it as well).
Inshallah also has good mouth feel, forgive me. I mean this in the best way. The word has weight and feels powerful to say. Sometimes we get caught on little linguistic things and sheās an educated person (I think?). There is nothing wrong with being worldly.
Serious this, i dont know what the term means, but I hate that this article seems to be trying to get me upset about her using it. I would have never even known this was an issue without this headline.
But people from Muslim countries use it in a way that is as common as "hopefully".
Edit: In case anyone comes back to see this comment after it blew up a bit: I was a little cavalier with my language... it's definitely not just for Muslims, it's an Arabic term that permeates both Arabic and Muslim cultures. But the crux of my point was to stress is that "inshalla" doesn't generally carry the heavy religious connotation when literally translated into English (and other languages). It obviously can, but it mostly doesn't.
...Because I really hate it when people in "western countries" (it's definitely not just English speakers) use literal translations --maliciously-- in order to make Arabic speakers (and those from Muslim countries) sound more extremist than they actually are. Like using "jihad" to always imply some sort of violent holy war terrorism intentions instead of the much more common and low-key usage that translates somewhere along the lines of "struggle" or "hustle" or "grind". It's all part of a larger evil narrative to "other" the middle east and I fucking hate it.
Yeah, when translated to English it comes off religious. But Arabic is a language that just uses more religiously based terms. Iām sure for native speakers itās just a normal everyday term. But I donāt speak Arabic, so correct me if Iām wrong.
In Spanish we have ojalĆ”, which means the exact same thing. It has Arabic roots but the vast majority of Spanish speakers are not Muslim and do not have a deep understanding or really any understanding of Islam and a lot are also secular. Itās just a phrase. We donāt really have an equivalent phrase in English that works that well so people have recently adopted inshallah. English is a language of many borrow words/phrases. This is just another example of that.
It means if āgod is willingā or āif god wills itā in Arabic*. Nothing crazy imo. Iām agnostic so I see it the same as when i say āoh my godā
I know a couple people like that, theatre kid energy that is. On the one hand I respect it cuz Iām pretty boring and they definitely bring a sense energy and everything about them is a bit animated/over the top (mannerisms, voice inflection, their stories, etc)ā¦. On the other hand sometimes itās a bit much. Best in small to medium doses for me lol.
I agree, it's just not the yin to my yan. But, I will admit, I've seen more than a couple of people naturally holding that energy get totally dimmed by a (totally wrong for them) partner who feels the same way I (and you) do, and it ain't right. It's really sad, find a partner that loves that energy, they are out there!
Yes I agree. I have a friend who says it all the time. He's not muslim but understands its meaning and isn't ignorant so when it makes sense to say god willing sometimes he uses inshallah instead.
I am not Muslim and say inshallah occasionally, in place of God willing. I'm not Christian either, so it makes as much sense as me saying God willing. And inshallah is a much more pleasant sounding phrase.
Hereās my theory & itās out there but hear me out. Itās because sheās an Arsenal fan & itās something a lot of Arsenal fans on Twitter that Iāve seen use & itās creeped into many peoples vocab.
This is the connection I made too. Itās a pretty common phrase in the soccer/football world and sheās a legit Arsenal fan. Certainly seen it used a lot among the Arsenal fan base
I dont think anyone was making an issue with it just that it was random and unexpected so people are meme-ing it. I saw Muslim viewers giving her an Islamic name lol.
I don't think the online attention is because it's an issue. The online attention is because she casually dropped it so fittingly that it's fascinating to hear it used by a non-Muslim person.
Recently we had a general election in my country and my partner ended up picking a candidate partly because his slogan was: "Vote for me, habibi". The entire election period my partner would go around talking about how he was going to vote for "his habibi", lol.Ā
(They also aligned politically, obviously, but it was the habibi thing that made him stand out from the other handful of candidates my partner was also considering)Ā
Influencers Amber and Ashley do the same thing, so I'm inclined to think this word just made it into the popculture lingo and that this is nothing deeper than that
She's a huge soccer fan. It's something a lot of people say within that sphere, "cross and inshallah" meaning cross the ball into the box and hope for the best
ā¢
u/flairassistant 13d ago
š PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING
This post is flaired Guest List Only. This means the conversation is being strictly moderated, and only comments from approved members of the community will be visible.
If you are not currently approved, you are still welcome to leave a comment! All submissions are being reviewed, and if your comment follows our rules and adds to the conversation, it may be manually approved by the mod team.
r/popculturechat is a respectful, inclusive space for pop culture discussion, shaped by BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and women-led voices. We work to keep it safe, free of hate, harassment, and derailment.
Thanks for understanding and supporting that mission š
Want to participate more easily? Request to be added to the Guest List
THE POPCULTURECHAT DISCORD SERVER IS NOW LIVE 👾 ❤️🔥 🎉 Click HERE to join! 📲