“The hubris at the core of this notion that we can change everything is somewhat new. In a world where we can beam documents around the world in nanoseconds, chat in high-definition video with anyone anywhere, predict the weather down to the minute, it’s very easy to internalize the assumption that nature has been domesticated and submits to our whim. Of course it hasn’t. People didn’t always think this way. The ancients (and the not so ancients) used the word fate far more frequently than us because they were better acquainted with and exposed to how capricious and random the world could be. Events were considered to be the “will of the Gods.” The Fates were forces that shaped our lives and destinies, often not with much consent. Letters used to be signed “Deo volente”—God willing. Because who knew what would happen? Think of George Washington, putting everything he had into the American Revolution, and then saying, “The event is in the hand of God.” Or Eisenhower, writing to his wife on the eve of the Allied invasion at Sicily: “Everything we could think of have been done, the troops are fit everybody is doing his best. The answer is in the lap of the gods.” These were not guys prone to settling or leaving the details up to other people—but they understood ultimately that what happened would happen. And they’d go from there. It’s time to be humble and flexible enough to acknowledge the same in our own lives. That there is always someone or something that could change the plan.”
― from “The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage”
This is what إن شاء اللهُ is. Except that unlike Deo Volente – it is not in Latin but in Arabic.
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