54 / Ojala

My very favorite word in Spanish is Ojala, roughly meaning "hopefully."

Spain, of course, was largely under the influence of the "Moors," or Arabs, from 711, AD to 1492, AD, which is the same year that Columbus set off to "discover" the Indies. The Alhambra, shown here, and which I visited in Granada, is among the legacies that the Arabs left to Spain.

But the Arabs left another legacy, too: the legacy of the word Ojala, a word still used in Egypt, in almost every conversation I've had, as "Inshallah."

"If God wills," and "if God allows," is a thought worth pondering. We tend to assume that it is we who will decide what is going to happen in the future.

Ojala / Inshallah!