Mashallah

Mashallah.

Mashallah!

Mashallah, I hear Akhmad say. Mashallah. I ask him what it means. “Mashallah, it's to be thankful. Something wonderful.” It means, literally, “God wills it.” And yet it seems, there's a kind of joy inside the word, too. Some large, cosmic gratitude.

'Mashallah, fine set of boys you've got here, sir,' he smiled, shaking us all by the hand, and giving Jamal a mock punch on the shoulder. 'Y'all new to the masjid?' ' Yes, we are,' Dad answered him. 'It's our first time here as a family.'

At this early stage of the narrative, this manner of describing Mashallah's state of mind foreshadows a more radical loss of self, i.e., a journey that transforms him from an ordinary and insignificant bank guard to a visitor to the court of Harun...

Mashallah, the cook, housekeeper and moral guardian of the family, had a different relationship with each of us. For Achim he felt deep respect, with some distance; he was jealous of Marianne, fearing for his sovereignty in the domestic sphere;...