What does it mean when someone exclaims “La ila!” in a conversation? (I know it’s the first bit of the Shahada, but in this context it seems more like an exclamation of some kind.)
It looked weired when i first read it, but when u mentioned shahada i see it now…but it’s misspelled, it’s “la ilaha” , which means “there’s No lord…” , the rest being : “… but Allah”.
As an exlamation it still has the same meaning. though i don’t know what exactley you mean by exclamation, i never heard some1 saying only “la ilaha” without the rest of the phrase as an eclamation
personally, i’ve always though it to be:
ya ilahi
like in English when you exclaim, “Oh my god!”
we don’t say “ya ilahi” in darija, Syrians do.
Hm. I remember my downstairs neighbor doing this a lot. She’d say something I found surprising and I’d say “Really?” And she would raise one hand up and say “La Ilaha!” as it to testify that she was speaking the truth. Or with another friend, if someone said something that she strongly agreed with, she would do the same thing (hand gesture, too.)
I think that’s “wallahila”
Shukran, Paperbird!