Languages which may not commonly use the term Allah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word . For example , because of the centuries long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula , the word ojalá in the Spanish language and oxalá in the Portuguese language exist today , borrowed from Arabic ( Arabic : إن شاء الله ) . This phrase literally mean ' if God wills ' ( in the sense of " I hope so " ) . The German poet Mahlmann used the form " Allah " as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity , though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey .