The Ḥawqala is an Arabic word referring to the statement la ḥawla wa la quwwata illa billah (Arabic "لا حول ولاقوة إلا بالله") which is usually translated as "There is no initiative or capability except from God(Allah

Allah

Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...

)." This expression is mentioned by a Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 whenever seized by a calamity or in a situation beyond their control. The word Hawqala is made by the method of combining (or naḥt) from the words hawla and quwwata.

The English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

does not completely convey the full meaning of the phrase. For example, translating the word hawla as "power" is an over-simplification. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic shows the linguistic verb root for hawla as h-w-l, and it depicts all manner of change, transformation and motion.