20-second video clip of Biden using inshallah during the 29 September 2020 presidential debate
2 October 2020
During the 29 September 2020 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with Chris Wallace of Fox News moderating, the following exchange occurred at 15 minutes, 45 seconds into the debate:
WALLACE: Mr. President, I’m asking you a question. Will you tell us how much you paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017?
TRUMP: Millions of dollars.
WALLACE: You paid millions of dollars...
TRUMP: Millions of dollars, yes.
WALLACE: So not seven hundred and fifty?
TRUMP: Millions of dollars, and you’ll get to see it. And you’ll get to see it.
BIDEN: When? Inshallah?
Inshallah is Arabic for “if God wills it,” and it’s used throughout the Muslim world, not just among Arabic speakers, when expressing a wish or hope. Among believers it can be a prayer, but it can also be a superstitious statement warding off a jinx, akin to “cross my fingers” or “knock on wood.” And inshallah can also be used sarcastically, indicating that one does not believe the thing in question will happen. It does, however, seem odd coming from the mouth of an American presidential candidate. (The Biden campaign confirmed that the candidate did in fact use the word and it’s not a case of mumbling or mishearing.) But its use in the American speech and writing has been on the rise in recent decades, and Biden’s use of the phrase isn’t really all that unusual.
Inshallah has a long history of use in English, but mainly in the contexts of Muslim societies. Early uses are, unsurprisingly, dominated by glosses and quotations of Arabic speakers and Muslims. An early use by an Englishman is by Arthur Conolly who records this conversation with an Afghan that occurred on 25 October 1829:
"Artillery! What would you do with your artillery against us? Inshallah, we shall be invading Hindoostân some of these days, and then our Syuds shall make your powder turn to water, and our horse will gallop in upon you and cut you down at your guns."—"And if you do come," I replied, "Inshallah! we’ll make roast meat of you all!"—a retort which was received with the greatest good-humour by the whole company.
Of course, this is in conversation with a Muslim, and Conolly repeats the word after the Afghan had already used it.
A slightly more English-only use is in a letter by James Baillie Fraser of 11 August 1833, but again the context is of a Muslim country, in this case Iran:
Tehran, to be sure, is at this season as hot a hole as I ever was in; but I shall soon quit it, inshallah! for the healthy yeiláks of Lâr and the mountains.
And British diplomat John Bowring uses it when writing in his journal for 14 April 1855 about his mission to Siam, what is now Thailand. The fact that it is in his personal journal is telling; he is not writing for the benefit of someone else:
They urged the conclusion of the treaty, so that the Rattler might get away by the next tide; and from half-past five A.M. all hands have been engaged in copying out the articles. They wished to have them one after another, in the hope that the whole may be concluded to-day. Inshallah! Such promptitude was, I believe, never before exhibited in an Asiatic Court.
This instance is more unusual because Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, and Bowring’s diplomatic experience was primarily with China, not Arabic-speaking or Muslim nations. Still, he undoubtedly acquired it somewhere along the way and associated the term with the “East.”
But the earliest English-language use of inshallah that I’m aware of that is completely divorced from any connection with the Muslim world is from William Burroughs 1959 Naked Lunch:
Homosexuality is a political crime in a matriarchy. No society tolerates overt rejection of its basic tenets. We aren’t a matriarchy here, Insh’allah.
But since the 2003–11 Iraq War, use of the phrase in American speech and writing has grown. American troops picked up and widely used the word. The following chart shows the number of times the word appears in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) in the thirty years from 1990–2019, divided into five-year increments.
Chart showing the rise in the use of inshallah in American speech and writing from 2004–14. Source: COCA.
Biden’s son Beau served in Iraq, and it seems likely that Biden picked up the phrase from his son.
So, in the end it is not all that unusual for Biden to have used the word. And he used it correctly, expressing the hope that Trump would release his tax returns, but also sarcastically, indicating that he doesn’t believe that will ever happen.
Sources:
Bowring, John. The Kingdom and People of Siam, vol 2 of 2. London: John W. Parker and Son, 1857, 304. HathiTrust Digital Library.
Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch (1959). New York: Grove Press, 1984, 36. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Conolly, Arthur. Journey to the North of India, vol. 2 of 2. London: Richard Bentley, 1834, 67. HathiTrust Digital Library.
Davies, Mark. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), 2020. .
Fraser, James Baillie. A Winter’s Journey (Tâtar,) from Constantinople to Tehran, vol. 2 of 2. London: Richard Bentley, 1838, 416. HathiTrust Digital Library.
Liberman, Mark. “Inshallah.” Language Log, 1 October 2020.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. inshallah, int.
Video credit: C-SPAN, 2020.