| Sumario: | The phrase inshallah 'God willing' is well known, even to non-Arabic speakers, as a mitigator of any statement regarding the future, or hopes for the future. Here we use the methods of conversation analysis (CA) to examine a less salient but nonetheless pervasive and compelling interactional usage: in topic-transition sequences. We use a corpus of Levantine (predominantly Syrian) Arabic talk-in-interaction to pay detailed attention to the sequential contexts of inshallah and its cognates across a number of exemplars. It emerges that these invocations are used to secure possible sequence and topic closure, and that they may engender reciprocal invocations. Topical talk following invocations or their responses is subsequently shown to be suspended by both parties; this provides for amove to a newtopic by either party. (Arabic, religious expressions, conversation, conversation analysis, topic)* An American colonel in Iraq, writing to The Washington Post's Thomas E. Ricks, recently observed: "The phrase 'inshallah' or 'God willing', has permeated all ranks of the Army. When you talk to U.S. soldiers about the possible success of 'the surge', you'd be surprised how many responded with 'inshallah'." The phrase seems to have permeated all ranks of the diplomatic corps, too: Zalmay Khalilzad, when he was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, once stated at a conference, "Inshallah, Iraq will succeed." (Murphy 2007).
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